Lot 104
Treasury 5, no. 692 (‘Purple Purity’)
HK$37,500

Transparent amethyst-purple glass with a few small bubbles; with a flat lip and recessed, slightly convex foot surrounded by a protruding rounded foot rim
1720-1780
Height: 4.43 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.75/1.36 cm
Stopper: glass; pearl finial; glass collar

Provenance:
Ko Collection, Tianjin (1940)
Christie’s, London, 18 June 1973, lot 60
J. Mason
Drouot, Paris (Millon-Jutheau), 6 November 1983, lot 23
Paula J. Hallett
Sotheby’s, New York, 27 June 1986, lot 30

Published: 
Kleiner 1987,no.75
Treasury 5, no. 692

Exhibited:
Sydney L. Moss Ltd, London, October 1987
Creditanstalt, Vienna, May – June 1993

The colour here, while possessing a slightly bluer tint than Sale 8, lot 1070, is still emphatically purple and close to the colour of a fine amethyst. Again, it is a colour probably derived from manganese oxide.

With a bottle such as this, it is perhaps safer to say that it resembles rather than necessarily imitates amethyst. A stronger case for assuming intent to imitate can be made for those glass bottles carved from a solid block, like a stone, where even the weight is similar to the stone.

The shape of this bottle, akin to Sale 5, lot 45, appears to be an early form, and nothing about its manufacture would conflict with this assumption. It is an elegantly achieved compression of the sphere, balanced by a widely flaring neck and a small protruding foot rim, all achieved with consummate skill and with perfect formal integrity.

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.