Lot 60
Treasury 5, no. 717 (‘Italian Sparkle’)
HK$15,000
Transparent sapphire-blue glass suffused with air bubbles of various sizes, with surface inclusions of aventurine-glass; with a flat lip and recessed, slightly convex foot surrounded by a protruding rounded foot rim
1700 – 1760
Height: 4.98 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.82/1.42 cm
Stopper: glass; ivory collar
Provenance:
Zhirou Zhai 知柔齋 Collection
Hugh M. Moss Ltd (1993)
Published:
Treasury 5, no. 717
This bottle represents a group in which fragments of aventurine glass are rolled into the surface of a contrasting colour. For more on aventurine glass, see Sale 4, lot 59. The Chinese terms for this material are jinxing boli 金星玻璃 (‘golden-star glass’) and wendulina 溫都里那(or 文都里那).
Nothing about this bottle would preclude a date from the first half of the eighteenth century. The simple form could have been made at any time, but the blue glass here is as suffused with air bubbles as any piece known of this colour and also contains some impurities, as if the type might still have been at an experimental stage when it was produced. It is highly likely to have been produced at the imperial glassworks but we cannot be sure.
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.