Bottle ID: 728

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LAVENDER

Date: 1780-1820

Height: 50 mm

Jadeite, well hollowed, of small ovoid form with rounded shoulders sloping to a cylindrical neck and with a flat oval base, the stone with a natural soft lavender lustre throughout.

Similar Examples:
Crane Collection no.s 285 and 748
Sotheby's New York, September 14, 2010, lot 165, The Joe Grimberg Collection

Provenance:

A private Pennsylvania Collection

No records have come to light as yet dating the first import of lavender jadeite into China. Jadeite, from Burma, was known to the Chinese from the late Ming dynasty but did not become a valued material until the last quarter of the Qianlong reign, when it became accepted as a highly valued alternative form of jade. There are one or two blue jadeite examples, which because of their extreme hollowing are very pale in color, and it may be that generally lavender jade lost its distinctive color when finely hollowed, rendering it rather pointless as a combination of technique and material. It is likely that the material became popular, or was first mined, in the first half of the nineteenth century. This example is one of the half-dozen known bottles of the material which are better made examples, where good hollowing is combined with formal integrity and an even natural color.

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