Bottle ID: 357

< Previous page

CARVED WITH TETHERED HORSE

Date: 1750-1860

Height: 61 mm

Jasper, well hollowed, of flattened squared form with rounded shoulders and a well carved footrim, carved in relief on one side using the ochre inclusion against a dark green ground with a tethered horse, its head lowered nuzzling the rocky ground, the reddish-brown stone on the reverse left uncarved.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 457
Crane Collection nos. 141 and 628
Moss, Hugh M. Chinese Snuff Bottles of the Silica or Quartz Group, 1971, p. 19, no. 36 and p. 49, no. 124.
Sotheby's, New York, March 17, 1997, lot 217.
Sotheby's, New York, October 25, 1997, lot 81, The Gerry P. Mack collection.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
Charlotte Davies, London, England

This is one of the most spectacular of all known quartz tethered-horse-and-post snuff bottles. Certainly a popular subject matter for the carvers, the result is often stiff and repetitive. In this case not only is the carving more fluid and painstaking, but the composition is much more dynamic than the more common rendering. The use of the dark green background color in the stone particularly for the rockwork and the post is also a departure from the norm, lending the depiction a sublety which is often absent.

< Back to full list