78 - AN AMBER COLOURED GLASS HAND-SHAPED SNUFF BOTTLE 1780-1920

AN AMBER COLOURED GLASS HAND-SHAPED SNUFF BOTTLE 1780-1920 To Be Sold Without Reserve The middle three fingers closed into the palm, the thumb and little finger pointing straight out, the wrist forming the cylindrical neck with a concave lip Height: 5cm Provenance: Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd, 22nd October 2007, (a copy of the original invoice available) A series of hand-shaped snuff bottles was made in China, mostly in the mid- to late-Qing dynasty, and often of fairly rudimentary workmanship involving more the manipulation of the hot glass than carving and polishing afterwards. They are always amusing, however, and the positioning of the fingers varies, some being quite rude in certain parts of the world. The position here, however, is relatively benign and quite coincidentally resembles the surfer’s sign for ‘Hang ten’ or the number six in Chinese. It is possible that the design concept was imported from Bavaria, where it also appears as snuff bottles. Some of the glassmakers who helped set up the Imperial glassworks in 1696 were Bavarians, including Kilian Stumpf, although there is no evidence of Bavarian fist bottles being so early, but in the late-Qing Germans also helped with commercial glassmaking in Shandong province, at Boshan, in the last decades of the nineteenth century Ω This Lot was imported from outside of the UK, under the Temporary Admission regime 5% import VAT will be charged on the ‘hammer” and 20% VAT will be charged on the ‘buyer’s premium