Bottle ID: 00029

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REALGER, IMITATION, ORANGE W/RED SPLASHES & BLACK STREAKS

Date: 1730-1760

Height: 64 mm

Glass, of flattened ovoid form, the shoulders tapering to the neck with a flaring everted mouth and the base flat; the body with vividly dappled red splashes over an opaque orange ground and with sparse streaks of black; in imitation of realgar.

Attributed to Beijing.

Similar Examples:

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, pp. 138-140, no. 703.
Sotheby's, Hong Kong, May 3, 1995, lot 363, A private Canadian Collection.
Soame Jenyns, R. Chinese Art, Vol. 4, The Minor Arts II, pp. 144 and 155.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.

Exhibited:
 

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

Glass imitating realgar was very popular in the eighteenth century and there seems to have been a connection to the Imperial workshops, at least in the first half of the period. There is a realgar glass piece in the Imperial collection in Beijing dating from the Yongzheng period, and several with Qianlong nianzhi base marks. However, glass imiating realgar could not have been exclusively made for the Palace since there is a realgar glass vase in the Sloane Bequest in London which entered the British Museum in 1753. Although Sloane purchased some of his Chinese pieces in China from as early as 1718, it is unlikely, as a foreigner, that he had access to objects from the Palace Workshops. The only possibility, and it is a remote one, would have been if the Emperor had given these pieces out as favors and an ungrateful recipient had subsequently decided to sell his!

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