G18 A red overlay flakesnow “Ten perfections” snuff bottle

Description

Description:  Chinese carved red overlay snowflake glass snuff bottle. Decorated with the Ten coins motif, or “Ten Perfections”.  The meaning of this motif is explained in the last picture, from Terese Tse Bartholomew book “Hidden meanings in Chinese Art”. The quality of this bottle is very high; each coin is exactly carved with the same characters and in the same order of those illustrated in the mentioned book. A strange feature of this bottle is that the thickest parts of the red overlay have a distinct blue color when seen in transparency, as shown in the penultimate picture.

Foot/base:  Well shaped protruding foot and slightly convex base

Mark:  No marks

Dating:  18^th century. Probably Imperial, Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Material:  Glass.

Size:  64 mm high

Stopper:  Lapis lazuli and ivory spoon.

Provenance: Mario Dalmazzo collection

References:  See last picture.

Notes:  About Mario Dalmazzo collection, see the ceramic bottle C8