A Sapphire-Blue Overlay White Glass ‘Prunus’ Snuff Bottle Qing Dynasty, 18th / 19th Century

Moss et al., 1996-2009, vol. 5, no. 935.

A couple of minor nibbles in the sapphire-blue overlay. Not significant.
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Certain features of this small bottle suggest it is more likely to date from the first half of the nineteenth century than the last part of the eighteenth. The most telling of these is the detailing of the foot, where, rather than being confined neatly to the foot rim, the blue overlay bleeds extensively into the foot. Hinted at by the main-side view where the foot rim line is a little uneven, this becomes more obvious when the bottle is inverted, revealing three uneven and untidy spikes of blue running well into the centre of the foot. This is a clear indication of the gradual decline in standards that we suspect began in the latter part of the Qianlong period. To confine the overlay colour perfectly to the foot rim presented a challenge, demanding a skilled partnership between glassblower and carver, but once a degree of bleeding around the foot became acceptable practice, production would have been considerably simplified. Other features indicating a mid-Qing date are found in the relatively small mouth and uneven ground plane.

The carving is otherwise impressive, the subtle use of two different planes of carving in the blue leaving thicker areas of darker glass that are used to considerable effect, notably where smaller twigs and buds cross in front of the main trunk of the tree. The general layout of the branches and flowers is similar on each side (although as a mirror image) but the details are quite different, which suggests a more consciously artistic approach.

For other small bottles with design of a similar nature and obviously from the same workshop, see Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 28th October 1993, lot 1043 (black on pink), and Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 3rd November 1994, lot 809 (cinnabar-red on black). There is also an obvious stylistic association between this and lot 1146 in this sale.