Page 97 - Ruth and Carl Barron Snuff Bottles September 2016

(two views)
Ť558
A RARE THREE-COLOR-OVERLAY CLEAR GLASS
SNUFF BOTTLE
1760-1850
The bottle is carved through the transparent red, blue and pale-
green overlays to the bubble-suffused ground, on one main side
with a peony stem with red and blue flowers and a green stem, the
reverse with a similar begonia stem and a blue butterfly.
28 in. (7.5 cm.) high, rose quartz stopper
$7,000-9,000
PROVENANCE
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd., Hong Kong.
The Meriem Collection; Christie’s New York, 19 March 2008, lot
638.
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd., Hong Kong, 2011.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 5175.
EXHIBITED
Canadian Craft Museum, Vancouver, 1992.
This bottle is part of a group of late Qianlong bottles with heavily represents prosperity, and is associated with the upper classes
bubbled grounds, and bright, multi-colored overlays. Certain
groups of mid-Qing glass snuff bottles have been attributed to
the Xin or Yuan family of glass carvers (Xinjiapi and Yuanjiapi
respectively). Unfortunately, however, the only early information
on these families and their wares comes a century after their
time and is hardly sufficient for any confident attribution. They
are mentioned by the nineteenth-century snuff connoisseur Zhao
Zhiqian in his Yonglu xianjie where he writes that the Xin, Le and
Yuan family overlays were famous during the Qianlong period:
“All the ones made in this way might be called overlays (pi) and
the most famous of these are the Xin family overlays (Xinjiapi), Le
family overlays (Lejiapi) and Yuan family overlays (Yuanjiapi).” The
Xin family overlays are described as similar to those made by the
Yuan family, and according to Zhao Zhiqian, “are the most cleanly
done, and, as their colors are made out of crushed gems, the lustre
dazzles the eye.” The Le family overlays, on the other hand, “have a
lotus[-root] powder ground as white as frozen snow. The way the
colors are arranged is also quite extraordinary, with red, purple,
sky-blue, and kingfisher-blue alternating one with the other in a
natural fashion.”
The begonia (qiuhaitang) has long been an esteemed garden plant
in China, often planted on rockwork and used as ground cover
in small areas of shade. It is associated with feminine qualities
because of its preference for cool, shady places and there is a
legend that a spot watered by the tears of a woman deserted by
her lover suddenly sprouted begonias to console her.
The sound tang in the name of the begonia (qiuhaitang) was
probably intended to evoke the idiomatic expression yutang fugui
(“[May your] magnificent hall [be filled with] riches”). The begonia
is commonly linked to the magnolia (yulan) to elicit the sound of
the first half of this expression. The peony, “the king of flowers,”
of society.
䍆⥶㍩Ӳ蔶∇∡⥘聖㌉
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