Page 34 - September 21 2021 Curtis collections snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

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A PALE-BLUE-GLASS OVERLAY ‘SNOWSTORM-GROUND’ The four-character inscription in seal script reads chen xin ru shui 臣心
DAOIST-SUBJECT SNUFF BOTTLE 如水, “My heart is as pure as water”, a metaphor for an uncorrupted
Yangzhou School seal school, 1800-1850 official. The phrase is quoted from the Han Shu, in the biography of
Of flattened rounded tear-drop shape, carved in low relief through a Zheng Cheng, who served Vice Director of the Imperial Secretariat
pale blue glass overlay with a continuous scene of a scholarly figure during the reign of the Eastern Han dynasty Emperor Aidi (R. 6 - 1
standing on rockwork under a gnarled pine with a crane standing BCE).
nearby and a bat above on one main face, and with a seated figure
being punted in a simple boat near willow below a bird and wispy For a pale blue overlay bottle carved in a similar fashion with rockwork
cloud below a four-character inscription reading chen xin ru shui in a and vessels and signed Songtai, see Hugh Moss, Victor Graham
horizontal line, supported on a simple oval foot ring also cut from the and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Mary and
overlay, all over a dense semi-transparent bubble-suffused ground. George Bloch Collection, Vol. 5, Part 3, Glass, pp. 782-783, no. 1048.
2 3/8in (5.8cm) high, stopper
$1,500 - 2,500

1800-1850年 揚州作霏雪地套藍料山水高仕紋鼻煙壺

Provenance:
Asiantiques, November 1992

Illustrated:
Arts of Asia, Nov-Dec. 1998, p. 106

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