A CARVED IMPERIAL PURPLE AVENTURINE GLASS ‘MONKEYS AND PEACH’ BRUSH WASHER QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG PERIOD |

the vessel skilfully carved in the round as a hollow peach with a bat on the wide incurved rim, the peach rendered issuing from a gnarled branch on one side bearing leaves and two attendant smaller peaches, two monkeys depicted seated nimbly on the branch whilst facing one another, the smoothly polished glittering glass of a rich purplish-blue colour with mesmerising lighter streaks

Aventurine glass vessels of this attractive purplish tinge are rare, compared to the larger number of vessels in the typical mottled brown colour. Several of these are illustrated in Zhang Rong, Lustre of Autumn Water. Glass of the Qing Imperial Workshop, Beijing, 2005, pls 94-100. In the introduction to the catalogue, she expounds the history of aventurine glass at the Qing court. Invented in Murano, it was imported into China from the seventeenth century and much admired. By 1741, the Jesuit missionary Pierre Nicolas d'Incarville is recorded as having successfully created it at the Palace Workshops in the Forbidden City. An aventurine glass brushwasher in the form of a lotus leaf from the Qing court collection is preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Small Refined Articles of the Study, Shanghai, 2011, pl. 119. It is similarly conceived and shares closely related treatment of the undulating stems, especially to the underside.