POSSIBLY IMPERIAL, 1770-1850

The fact that this glass bottle was carved from a solid block of material, rather than blown, suggests it was intended as an imitation of a hard-stone, since carving from blocks leaves the material with greater weight than is usual for a blown glass bottle. The Palace workshops apparently produced a series of works in imitation of various stones during the mid-Qing period which were carved from solid blocks of glass. Many of these imitate beryl, or its blue variety, aquamarine, or tourmaline, which in its green form can closely resemble beryl, and others imitate quartz (crystal, amethyst, agate, etc.). In this example, some darker coloring suggests green, possibly actinolite, inclusions in quartz which have been used to emphasize some of the relief details. This bottle belongs to a small group of fruit-form bottles (gourds, melons, eggplants, etc.), often with a butterfly or other insect on the surface and a severed branch around the shoulders, which were standard at the Qing Court, usually carved from jade, but also found in a range of other materials.
The gourd symbolizes fertility, because of the many fruit that grow from a single vine, while the butterfly is a symbol of longevity, based upon a pun on its pronunciation, which sounds the same as the character for the ages of seventy or eighty.