203 - RARE CARVED CLEAR GLASS ‘CHILONG’ SNUFF BOTTLE IMPERIAL, PALACE WORKSHOPS, BEIJING, 1700-1750

RARE CARVED CLEAR GLASS ‘CHILONG’ SNUFF BOTTLE IMPERIAL, PALACE WORKSHOPS, BEIJING, 1700-1750 To Be Sold Without Reserve Colourless glass, with internal crizzling, of bulging, rounded-rectangular form with a cylindrical neck, flat lip and recessed, convex oval foot surrounded by a protruding, convex oval foot rim, carved around the main body with highly stylized chi dragon on each side, their tails and other sinuous extensions wrapping round onto the narrow sides to give the impression of a continuous design under a shoulder band of formalized alternating lingzhi-heads all framed between upper and lower bands of rope design, the neck with a band of pendant leaf lappets Height: 6.9cm Provenance: Dynasty Arts, March 2008 Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd, 25th March 2008, (a copy of the original invoice available) This is part of a rare, early-eighteenth century series of bottles form the Palace workshops, with glass produced in the Imperial glassworks and carving done in the Lapidary Workshops where jade was carved. There is another known bottle of similar size and shape, from a tomb in Beijing, which is of pale aquamarine colour and has somewhat similar decoration, but the closest is perhaps an overlay bottle in the Bloch Collection Treasury 5, no. 929, where exactly the same design is translated into an overlay. The use of the upper border with alternating inverted lingzhi heads is particularly unusual The crizzling also identifies this as a likely early product, perhaps even from the late-Kangxi period 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