A RUBY-RED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY

Wing Hing, Hong Kong, 1985.

Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 5, Hong Kong, 2002, no. 675.

There are occasional barely perceptible nibbles to the inner lip and outer footrim, in addition to some scattered air bubbles, including a burst one above the footrim.
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The use of gold in the typical Chinese ruby-glass represented by this bottle is confirmed by a fragment that tested as 0.01% gold (Emily Byrne Curtis, Qing Imperial Glass: The Workshop on Can Chi Kou, 1995, p. xxii). There can be no doubt that ruby-glass would have been a staple of court production from about 1696 well into the nineteenth century. It may well be that the vast majority, if not all, of the early ruby-glass bottles were made at the court, but it is difficult to believe that it remained an imperial secret for more than a century.

The glass in this instance is of a rather streaky nature, and there are a few air bubbles of different shapes and sizes, suggesting a lack of absolute mastery of the process. This may well indicate an early date, which would not be contradicted by its other characteristics. Of the relatively small size that appears to have been a common feature of many early-eighteenth-century bottles, it is very well detailed at mouth and foot, with excellent formal integrity.