Page 35 - The Ruth and Carl Barron Collection of Fine Chinese Snuff Bottles: Part I

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235 This bottle belongs to a series of intriguing ‘coin’ bottles carved with the
A RARE CAMEO AGATE WAISTED RECTANGULAR SNUFF BOTTLE two sides of the Spanish silver dollar which, along with a gold counterpart,
1790-1850 were standard international currency in trading during the nineteenth
century. Such bottles are usually of rock crystal but are also found in other
The stone is of honey and grey color and is carved in relief on one types of quartz, nephrite, and very rarely, in glass. For a discussion of these
side through opaque pale honey and white layers of the stone with a coins, see Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, the
head in profle after a Carolinian coin, and the reverse is carved with Mary and George Bloch Collection, Volume 2, Part 1, Hong Kong, 1998,
the Spanish coat of arms. pp. 154-157, no. 238.
2¡ in. (6 cm.) high, agate stopper
The present cameo agate version is unusual in its shape; most snuff bottles
$8,000-10,000 in this group are circular and as such could echo the exact proportions of
a coin. It seems to be a rendition of the Charles III coin, another version of
PROVENANCE: which is seen on a rare blue-overlay glass snuff bottle illustrated by Moss,
Graham, Tsang in The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J&J Collection,
V. Wilson, California. New York, 1993, Volume II, pp. 633-34, no. 385. The profle of the
Harriet Hamilton Collection. monarch is the same on both bottles, as is the coat of arms on the reverse
Asian Art Studio, Los Angeles, California, 2012. and the motifs fanking it. However the Roman letters on the present
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 5385. agate version appear to have been lost in translation. The letters around
the profle are just portions of the actual inscription that appears on the
LITERATURE: J & J glass bottle, CAROLUS III on the left and DEI GRATIA on the right.
The I beneath the profle on the present bottle appears in place of 1796
H. Hamilton, Oriental Snuff Bottles, California, 1977, p. 72. on the coin. The I motifs on the reverse are probably just improvisations
of the carver to fll the space with a Western emblem. Because of these
discrepancies, it seems possible that the carver of this agate bottle was
looking at another snuff bottle or object decorated with the Spanish coin,
and possibly did not have an understanding of what the decoration was
meant to represent.

1790-1850年 瑪瑙浮雕墨西哥銀幣紋鼻煙壺

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