A Variegated Purplish-Pink Glass Snuff Bottle Qing Dynasty, 18th / 19th Century

Robert Hall, London, 1985.

Moss et al., 1996-2009, vol. 5, no. 726.

Minor, insignificant nibbles to the inner lip. A natural circular dimpled blemish and some air bubbles burst at the surface.
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Pale pink and white was a popular colour combination for sandwiched glass bottles during the eighteenth century and possibly thereafter, although it remains likely that production of glass bottles decreased significantly with the gradual decline in both demand and production at court during the mid-nineteenth century. While the colour here is a rather more purplish pink than is usual, it still fits into the general range of sandwiched pink glass bottles. The same type of bottle was quite frequently carved, often into formalized lotus petals (see Sale 6, lot 192). Thus we can associate the type with the court, but since we cannot be certain what was made elsewhere we are faced with the familiar problem over specific attribution.

The process in this case is among the more common for sandwiched bottles, a thin layer of powdered glass having been trapped between two other layers of glass. The pink colour, derived from gold, is achieved by mixing ruby-red with white. It is easy to see from this example the close relationship between the arts of glassmaking and enamelling. A pink colour such as this defined the palette of enamels known as famille rose, which revolutionized enamelling in the first two decades of the eighteenth century.

The shape here is extremely simple, with a natural bubble of air from the blow-iron creating the basic form, which has then been compressed during the blowing process (probably by a mould). Although the neck appears to be fairly substantial, the bottle itself is very thinly blown, giving a feather-light feel in the hand.