Bottle ID: 411

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IMITATING REALGAR

Date: 1750-1860

Height: 59 mm

Jasper, very well hollowed, of flattened ovoid form with a concave foot, the stone of with small irregular crystal inclusions and of varying tones of orange and yellow resembling realgar.

Similar Examples:

Stevens, Bob C. The Collector's Book of S nuff Bottles, 1976, p. 138, no. 499.
White, Helen. Snuff Bottles from China: The Victoria and Albert Museum Collection, 1990, pp. 92-93, no. 3.
Sotheby's, New York, September 15, 1998, lot 141, The Neal W. and Frances R. Hunter Collection.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
The Clatworthy Collection
Robert Hall

 

Apart from being a superbly made bottle in a dramatic and rare material, the resemblance  between this stone and the much softer realgar, so often copied in glass by the Chinese, cannot have escaped notice.  This color combination is precisely what one finds so often in glass imitations of realgar, which although rarely seen, was highly valued for its use in alchemy. Certainly a piece of jasper so closely resembling this material would have been commensurately valued as a natural rarity.

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