Bottle ID: 00681

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BLACK, MICA FLAKES "SANDWICHED" BETWEEN INNER & OUTER LAYERS

Date: 1720-1820

Height: 55 mm

Glass, of ovoid form, with shoulders sloping to a straight neck, and with a neatly carved oval footrim, with irregular flakes of biotite (mica) sandwiched between an under layer of opaque black glass and an outer transparent layer.

Possibly Imperial, possibly attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

Christie, Manson & Woods, St. James's, London, June 18, 1973, lot 67, The Ko Family Collection, Part III.
Christie's, New York, September 19, 2007, lot 652, The Meriem Collection.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang.  A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2002, Vol. 5, Part 1, p. 171, no. 724.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
Guwan cheng, Beijing, November 2006

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

A large number of sandwiched glass bottles were made in the eighteenth century using a variety of different 'inner' materials.  When the technique was first developed, it is likely that glass of a different color from the under and outer layers was used creating a 'splashed' effect that is familiar to today's collectors.  As the glass maker's skill developed, other materials were used such as biotite or mica.  This would have been sprinkled or blown onto the underneath layer of glass.  Since European glass in the early eighteenth century also uses this technique, it is possible that the German Jesuit, Kilian Stumpf, passed it onto to his colleagues in the Imperial glassworks.

The Archives of the Imperial Household Department state the following in the year 1725 (first month, nineteenth day):

"Bao De and Hai Wang deliver one five color, Chenghua enameled porcelain pot, and one black glass snuff bottle with silver splashes, relaying the Imperial command to copy the pattern of the enameled pot hereafter for enameled and porcelain wares, and to make a few pairs in this style, and to make a few snuff bottles copying the glass sample."

 

 

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