Lot 1124
Treasury 5, no.847 (‘Botryoidal Ruby’)
HK$75,000

Transparent ruby-red glass sparsely suffused with small air bubbles, some elongated; with a flat lip; carved with a continuous design of three squirrels on a fruiting grapevine
1740-1840
Height: 5.7 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.63/1.50 cm
Stopper: jadeite; jadeite collar

Provenance:
Robert Hall (1987)

Published:
Hall 1987, no. 38
Treasury 5, no.847

Although this lovely and rare little bottle is blown, it provides one of the few instances where this may have been done without the use of a mould. It exhibits a rather irregular form that could easily have been freely blown, then shaped with the glassblower’s usual range of tools. The colour is as lovely as we have come to expect of imperial ruby-glass, although visually this is partly sacrificed to the fine-quality, detailed surface carving. While the entire bottle appears at first to be rendered as a bunch of grapes, superimposed upon which are leaves, tendrils, and squirrels, the grapes are, in fact, depicted only in a small cluster around the base.

On the subject matter, about which there has been some confusion in the snuff-bottle world over the years, see Tsang 1995a, pp. 15 – 19.

This is not the Sotheby’s sale catalogue. This is a product of Hugh Moss for the purposes of this website. For the catalogue details please refer to Sotheby’s website or request a copy of a printed sale catalogue from Sotheby’s.