Bottle ID: 00185

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REALGAR, IMITATION, MOTTLED ORANGE & BROWN W/RED MARKINGS

Date: 1700-1800

Height: 55 mm

Glass, of flattened ovoid form, with a recessed oval foot, of opaque mottled orange and brown tones with irregular bright red markings in imitation of realgar.

Possibly Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

The Crane Collection, no. 736
Sotheby's, New York, March 17, 1997, lot 10, The Canadian Collection.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

Realgar is an arsenic sulphide which decomposes with light and is poisonous. It is a soft mineral of orange-red color which occurs in granular, compact or powdery form. It has a Moh's hardness of 1.5-2 (soft) and a specific gravity of 3.5. It was used both as a medicine and for alchemy, as it was of great Daoist significance symbolizing longevity and immortality. While the material itself was carved into household objects such as wine pots and cups, they were rarely used as even touching the object could result in poisoning. For similar reasons, while there are many glass snuff bottles produced in imitation of realgar, there are very few bottles manufactured from the substance itself. The natural softness of the material, coupled with its relatively fast decomposition rate, means that true realgar bottles are exceptionally rare.

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