AN OCTAGONAL SAPPHIRE-BLUE GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE MARK AND PERIOD OF TONGZHI

Antiques Pacifica, Honolulu, 1980.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 3rd May 1995, lot 359.
A private Canadian Collection, 2000.
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd., 2000. 

Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, Winter 1992, p. 27, fig. 11, bottom row, third from left.
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. 813.

Apart from some surface wear through natural use, the overall condition is very good.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Sale 9, lot 50, demonstrates that a good deal of the quality evident in eighteenth-century standard-form palace-faceted octagonal snuff bottles was carried over into the Daoguang period. However, a hint of formal simplification that was to lead to a simpler method of faceting is represented by this bottle.

The beginning of this trend can be seen in a turquoise glass example with a Daoguang mark in Hong Kong and Hong Kong Chinese Snuff Bottle Society 1977, no. 47, where the faceting of the narrow sides cuts less deeply into the surface. On the bulging, rounded narrow sides of this example, it results in a series of circular panels instead of the neat rectangular ones of the earlier model. The same is true of Sale 8, lot 1087, a Daoguang-marked example.

By the Tongzhi period, when this example was made, the trend reaches its natural conclusion with no more than a series of barely connected flat oval shapes cut out of the bulging narrow sides and echoed on the main panels, which are faceted in a corresponding manner. The original inspiration is not in doubt, but here it has devolved into a notably different shape.

Although the faceting has been radically simplified, the size increased, and the form made much more bulbous and rounded, it has been executed with a degree of technical quality impressive for so late a bottle. Big and bulbous, it is nevertheless well carved and quite well finished. The reduction in calligraphic quality foreshadowed in the Daoguang example of Sale 9, lot 50, continues here with an entirely credible but calligraphically challenged rendition of the era name.

This raises the intriguing question of why it should have been so difficult throughout the mid-nineteenth century to muster a decent calligrapher among lapidaries of the day. Had it been considered sufficiently important, a court lapidary could surely have brushed up his inscriptions in short order, and only a serious decline in standards at the highest level would have permitted such carelessness. Had the Xianfeng emperor, instead of complaining of the inadequacies of his glassworkers, fined and flogged them as the Qianlong emperor was prone to do when disappointed, there would no doubt have been a prompt return to calligraphic grace.