A Red and White Double-Overlay Blue Glass ‘Dragons’ Snuff Bottle Yangzhou School, Qing Dynasty, 19th Century

Kenneth Brown, Inc., La Jolla.
Vad Jelton (prior to 1966).
Eric Young.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 28th October 1993, lot 1065.

Moss et al., 1996-2009, vol. 5, no. 1016.

It is in good condition.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This rare and impressive bottle is decorated with one of the few designs featuring dragons to be found among the multiple-overlay output of the Yangzhou. Two others depict dragons together with carp, one in the Baur Collection in Geneva (Collections Baur 17 [1973]), the other in Hong Kong 1977, and one magnificent five-clawed creature appears on a bottle offered by Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 29th April 1992, lot 338 (previously illustrated in The Snuff Bottle Collector6, April 1972). The imperial yellow examples (Sale 4, lot 96 and Franz 2011, p. 56, no. 364) suggest that the school produced bottles for the court, and the five-clawed dragon seems to confirm this. The dragons on the pair also featuring carp may be employed for their symbolic significance only, rather than to indicate any imperial connection, but this one may have been made for a member of the influential minority entitled to use the four-clawed dragon emblem. It was perhaps made for the court, since there are plentiful examples of four-clawed dragons formed part of the imperial production, and they were likely to have been made as gifts from the emperor to the ennobled.

Stylistically, the dragons here are distinctive, with tails of a leaf shape that does not seem to appear elsewhere in carved-glass dragon designs, and may be an element of this group when products were other than for the court. It may be significant that the only example from the Yangzhou displaying a five-clawed dragon features a different style of tail, more in keeping with the imperial norm, suggesting the school may have adjusted its dragon style for imperial orders.

This is a magnificent example of the multiple-overlay style of the school, with a rare dynamic colour combination, carved to high standards and in the usual folk-art style, but with well-defined detailing of the neck rim and the foot rim unusual for the group.