Page 36 - September 21 2021 Curtis collections snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

625
A BRILLIANT VIOLET-BLUE GLASS OVERLAY ‘EIGHT BATS’
BOTTLE
Qianlong period (1736-95)
Of flattened rounded profile, superbly carved through a transparent
pale violet-blue overlay in high relief with eight flying bats intersperced
amidst scrolling clouds with cleverly integrated overlapping wing tips
and cloud scrolls, a simple blue overlay ring at the foot, all over a semi-
transparent bubble-suffused ground.
2 1/8in (5.3cm) high

$8,000 - 12,000

清乾隆 白地套藍料蝙蝠紋鼻煙壺

This superb bottle must surely be of Imperial production, presumably
from the Palace workshops in Beijing during the Qianlong period.
The extraordinary details to every undercutting of glass and the
superb spacing of the design place this bottle in the top echelons of
production. For two other bottles with a differing design of peaches,
pomegranates and finger citrons but obviously of the same high
standard and probably Imperial production, see see Hugh Moss, Victor
Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J &
J Collection, Vol. II, pp. 603-605 no’s. 362-363.

Perhaps the most comparable example to ours is illustrated by Denis
S.K. Low, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Sanctum of Enlightened
Respect III, Singapore, 2007, p. 132, no. 108, where the author
discusses the significance of the bat decoration.

For another Imperial blue overlay bottle with a bubble-suffused
(‘snowstorm’) ground decorated with bats around a central shou
character, see Christie’s, New York, The Ruth and Carl Barron
Collection, Part V, 13 September 2017, lot 226. See also Clare
Lawrence, Miniature Masterpieces from the Middle Kingdom, The
Monimar Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, London, 1996, pp. 244-
245, no. 121, for an example with bats and cranes in a Daoist setting.

34 | BONHAMS