PROBABLY IMPERIAL, PROBABLY PALACE WORKSHOPS, 1740-1800

Details

A FINE CARVED AGATE SNUFF BOTTLE
PROBABLY IMPERIAL, PROBABLY PALACE WORKSHOPS, 1740-1800
The bottle is carved on either side with two confronting archaistic dragons, and is flanked on the shoulders by a pair of stylized animalistic handles, all above the delicately pierced foot.
1 15⁄16 in. (5 cm.) high, pink tourmaline stopper

Provenance

Hugh Moss.
Edmund F. Dwyer Collection.
Sotheby's New York, 25 February 1982, lot 125.
Rachelle R. Holden Collection, New York.

Literature

R. Holden, Rivers and Mountains Far From the World - The Rachelle R. Holden Collection, A Personal Commentary, New York, 1994, pp. 38-39, no. 8.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

An agate bottle supported on a pierced foot, but with calligraphic incised inscriptions on either side, is illustrated by H. Moss in Chinese Snuff Bottles of the Silica or Quartz Group, London, 1971, p. 74, no. 196. Another agate bottle also supported on a pierced foot is in the Denis S. K. Low Collection and illustrated by R. Kleiner in Treasures from the Sanctum of Enlightened Respect, Singapore, 1999, no. 173.

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