Page 18 - Christie's Chinese Snuff Bottled the Holden Collection March 24, 2022

The current bottle is amongst the finest examples of famille rose enamel on glass
snuff bottles of the Qianlong era. The birds and flowering plants are rendered
in a stunningly realistic manner. By this time in the eighteenth century, the
Palace Workshops had mastered the application and firing of enamels on glass, as
evidenced by the workmanship on this bottle. Enameled glass snuff bottles appear
to be more rare when compared to the number of metal and porcelain enameled
bottles, most likely because of the difficulty in controlling and firing the enamels
perfectly on glass.
A discussion of this early group of enamel on glass snuff bottles was recently
published in, H. Moss, Early Qianlong Palace Enameled Glass, JICSBS, Winter,
2021, Hong Kong, pp. 6-25, where the author discusses assigning a date of 1736-
1739 to this type, including the near-identical example to the present bottle in the
Sanctum of Enlightened Respect, the collection of Denis Low (fig. 9, left), stating:
"The group is characterised by panels of formalised floral designs, or in some cases

Fig.1 A famille rose enamel on glass snuff bottle, Qianlong incised seal mark and of
the period, The Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

16

document13283323126295017438.indd 16 2/17/2022 9:54:04 PM