A GLASS, IVORY AND WOVEN FIBRE MEDICINE BOTTLE LATE 19TH CENTURY / EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Collection of John Ault.
Robert Kleiner, 2005.

Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 7, Hong Kong, 2009, no. 1669.

This was probably not originally intended as a snuff bottle. There is no precedent for a snuff bottle stopper to be covered in this way with a screw-on cap, nor would it be necessary. The bottle is certainly on the late side, perhaps from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and by that time the snuff-bottle stopper was so well established that there would be little point in attempting a cap-over-stopper design innovation. The considerable space within the screw-on top suggests that it originally contained another stopper of some sort, perhaps a cork with a little knob on it to stopper a liquid or keep some medicinal powder dry. One other very similar example is known (Sotheby’s London, 6th June 1988, lot 375). It is of identical construction, but of compressed spherical form.

This case demonstrates that not everything that ended up as a snuff bottle was originally conceived as one. There are various ways to transform other art objects or containers into snuff bottles. A small carving of some sort might be hollowed out and converted into a snuff bottle. Miniature vases might also be easily transformed into snuff bottles by the addition of a stopper and spoon, and the same treatment could convert a range of medicine containers. Once converted, of course, all become de facto snuff bottles.

There is no pressing reason to assume that the woven fibre container and the ivory neck and cover were necessarily produced in China. If the stopper is removed, the vessel itself looks like a European glass flask. Perhaps this rare little flask was originally a scent bottle; upon reaching China from unknown shores, it was converted into a snuff bottle by the addition of the stopper.