A very rare small translucent blue glass reliquary bottle, Tang dynasty 唐 藍料舍利小瓶

Christie's London, 7th June 1993, lot 98.
Eskenazi, London.
Collection of Walter and Phyllis Shorenstein, San Francisco.
Christie's Hong Kong, 1st December 2010, lot 2905 (HK$400,000).

來源：
倫敦佳士得1993年6月7日，編號98
埃斯卡納齊，倫敦
舒思深伉儷收藏，三藩市
香港佳士得2010年12月1日，編號2905（港幣400,000）

Clarence F. Shangraw and Claudia Brown, A Chorus of Colors: Chinese Glass from Three American Collections, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 1995, cat. no. 9.

展覽：
Clarence F. Shangraw 及 Claudia Brown，《A Chorus of Colors: Chinese Glass from Three American Collections》，亞洲藝術博物館，三藩市，1995年，編號9

Supposedly once affixed with two tiny loop handles through heating, this delicate eggshell-thin vessel appears to be related to a small group of glass vessels found in the stupas of Buddhist temples; perhaps they were used as reliquaries for the ashes of the Buddha or Buddhist saints. See, for example, a small bottle unearthed from a Tang stupa at Ningan, Heilongjiang province, illustrated in An Jiayao, 'The Early Glass of China', in Robert H. Brill and John H. Martin, eds, Scientific Research in Early Chinese Glass, Corning Museum of Glass, New York, 1991, fig. 18.