Lot 1106
Treasury 5, no.982 (‘Abundant Fruit Salad’)
HK$150,000

Transparent streaky bluish emerald-green, sapphire-blue, streaky ruby- red, yellow, and semi-transparent white glass, all suffused with air bubbles of various sizes, some elongated; with a flat lip and recessed convex, irregularly oval foot surrounded by a protruding foot rim made up of elements of the design; carved as a single overlay on one main side with a severed leafy branch with two pomegranates and on the other with a similar branch with two peaches, a third branch, with two Buddha’s-hand citrons wrapped around the base of the bottle and acting as the foot rim, the narrow sides with mask-and-ring handles
1750-1810
Height: 7.28 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.65/1.39 cm
Stopper: jadeite; plastic collar

Provenance:
Private collection (Europe)
Sotheby’s, London, 7 June 1990, lot 19

Published:
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 112
Oriental Art, Spring 1994, p. 36
Treasury 5, no.982

Exhibited:
Hong Kong Museum of Art, March-June 1994
National Museum, Singapore, November 1994-February 1995

The three fruits depicted on this snuff bottle symbolise the Three Abundances (sanduo 三多), which are many happiness or blessings (duo fu 多福), many years of life (duo shou 多壽) and many male offspring (duo zi 多子).

The typically courtly mask handles may indicate an imperial bottle, and the generally auspicious nature of the symbolism is in keeping with a vast amount of courtly production. In view of the possibilities of carvings for the court being produced in both Suzhou and Yangzhou, however, combined with the likelihood of private workshops at Beijing during the Qianlong era, we have resisted an attribution to the imperial glassworks, despite its likelihood.

The milky ground is revealed at the lip to have separated out slightly, leaving a hint of a more transparent layer, which is undoubtedly spontaneous but resembles deliberate sandwiching. This, together with the streaky glass and naturalistic foot rim, links it to a relatively large group with courtly connections that seems to date from the Qianlong period (see, for instance, Sale 2, lot 146; Sale 5, lot 97; and Sale 6, lot 245) but may continue into the early nineteenth century. Unusual here are the bluish tone of the emerald-green glass from which the peach bough is carved and the intensity of the sapphire-blue of the handles—although such variations are typical of the group as a whole. The carving is very crisp, displaying a good level of control, and the integrity of the ground plane reasonably good.

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