清十八 / 十九世紀 寶石紅料光素鼻煙壺

Hugh M. Moss Ltd，1978年
Gerd Lester 收藏，1986年

Robert Kleiner、楊伯達及 Clarence F. Shangraw，《盈寸纖研 ─ 瑪麗及佐治伯樂鼻煙壺珍藏》，香港藝術館，香港，1994年，編號82

Gerd Lester，〈Artistry in a Bottle〉，《Antiques World》，1980年9月，頁66
Hugh Moss、Victor Graham 及曾嘉寶，《A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection》，卷5，香港，2002年，編號681

Minute nibbles creating an uneven edge to the inner lip. Air bubbles visible within the glass, one elongated bubble just below the neck.
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An unusual feature of the ruby-glass here is the shading to a less transparent, cinnabar-red colour at the neck. This is achieved in layers, which become evident from the bird’s-eye view at the lip, where the more translucent colour is in roughly concentric circles, a common enough phenomenon when blowing monochrome glass. The chemistry of glass is such that, given the intense heat and the various manipulative processes involved, spontaneous variations in colour could easily occur when a vessel was blown.

This might have happened at any time (and in any glassworks, of course), but in this instance there is one clue pointing to a possible Yongzheng date. There is a magnificent ruby-red vase in the Ellsworth Collection that exhibits a similar effect around its shoulders (Brown and Rabiner 1990, p. 55, no. 18) and a pair of faceted ruby-red bottles in the Weber Collection (ibid., p. 56, no. 19), on which a similar effect is seen at the top of the necks. All three pieces have Yongzheng reign marks. One would have been more confident of an early eighteenth century date were it not for Treasury 5, no. 756, which is of similar form to this and bears a mark for which the earliest possible date is 1861.

This form is distinctive in that the oval is set horizontally, with the neck and foot coming out of the longer dimension. It may have been inspired by a ceramic form dating from the Han dynasty and known as a ‘cocoon-form-jar’ (jianshi hu 繭式壺); its shape is similar to that of the silkworm cocoon. AHan example in the imperial collection inscribed with a notice by the Qianlong emperor dated 1789 indicates that the shape was known at court in the eighteenth century and might well have inspired the snuff-bottle form, as did so many ceramics and bronzes from the imperial collection.

The form has great presence and confidence, with its portly girth and the formal solidity imparted by the low centre of gravity that was created by the horizontal placement of the oval. Perfectly finished, it also features excellent detailing.