Bottle ID: 508

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WITH WHITE STRIPE

Date: 1840-1920

Height: 69 mm

Sedimentary limestone, of purplish-brown and creamy-white colors, of flattened shield shape with shoulders sloping to a slightly flared neck and with a flat, oval foot, the stone cut so as to preserve a natural, sandwiched layer of cream material between the two brown layers perfectly placed around the narrow sides, foot and across the mouth of the bottle.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 140
Crane Collection nos. 414 and 475
Lawrence, Clare. Miniature Masterpieces from the Middle Kingdom - The Monimar Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1996, pp. 76-77, no. 32.191.
Stevens, Bob C. The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, 1976, p. 169, no. 626.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
The Ko Family Collection

This is one of a small series of bottles apparently made from the same source of a sedimentary limestone, in which a layer of white, crystalline marble-like material forms between two layers of opaque, brown sedimentary stone. It is likely they were all produced from a single piece of rock by the same workshop, since they are all of a similar size and shape. In Bob C. Stevens, The Collector’s Book of Snuff Bottles, he identifies the material as albite, which is possible for the crystalline white layer, but not for the brown stone surrounding it. In 1921 the price of this bottle, according to the Ko Collection Records, was 5 yuan (a yuan being the Chinese silver ‘dollar’).

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