Footnotes

• Treasury 5, no. 679
  
  紅玻璃光素鼻煙壺
  
  A ruby-red glass snuff bottle
  
  Transparent ruby-red glass, with a few, sparsely scattered air bubbles, mostly of small size; with a flat lip and recessed, slightly concave foot surrounded by a protruding flat footrim
  1720-1780
  Height: 3 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.5/.83 cm
  Stopper: glass; vinyl collar; mother-of-pearl finial
  
  Condition: insignificant chip on outer footrim polished off
  
  Provenance:
  Thewlis Collection
  Clare Lawrence (1990)
  
  Published:
  Thewlis and Lawrence, 1990, p.58, no.88
  Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no.88
  Treasury 5, no. 679
  
  Exhibited:
  Hong Kong Museum of Art, March-June 1994
  National Museum, Singapore, November 1994-February 1995
  
  Here we enter the realm of the emphatically miniature, most comfortably held between the thumb and fingertips, too small for the palm. Formally, it provides an example of the inner bubble from the blow-iron not conforming precisely to the outer form, the formal integrity of which is excellent. Another intriguing feature is that the recessed foot is slightly concave. There are three possibilities for a recessed foot on a glass bottle: concave, flat, or convex. Contrary to some popular recent beliefs about distinguishing between old and new glass bottles based in part upon which of these three profiles is used, all three exist on old bottles, although with early examples the concave foot is the rarest. If there is a footrim, the cutting of the foot would have been the work of a lapidary, so while there is no particular need to keep to the natural convex exterior surface of blown glass, it was a frequently exercised aesthetic option. The only exception to this is provided by bottles blown into a preformed mould that includes the foot profile. In general practice, a flat foot or convex foot is the natural choice, since a concave one not only sits less well in general with the curving sides of the bottle, but also involves unnecessary extra work with little discernible advantage. The foot here, therefore, while a rarity, is obviously a considered choice with some formal purpose, since it is superbly achieved on an equally well-detailed bottle, and is unlikely to be the result of a careless carver going too deep and having to hide his error by using a concave foot profile.
  
  There is considerable inner swirling of the colour here, together with some scattered air bubbles of different sizes, which may indicate an early date. The overall impression, however, as with so much eighteenth-century ruby glass, is one of brilliance and clarity. It is not until one examines the bottle with a magnifying glass that some lack of purity becomes evident.
  
  紅玻璃光素鼻煙壺
  
  透明寶石紅玻璃，具零星的氣泡，多數是小的，平唇，微凹斂底，突出圈足，足底完全接觸地面
  1720-1780
  高﹕ 3 厘米
  口經/唇經： 0.5/.83 厘米
  蓋﹕玻璃；乙烯基座，珍珠母頂飾
  
  狀態敘述：圈足外沿微不足道的缺口已磨平
  
  來源﹕
  Thewlis 珍藏
  Clare Lawrence (1990)
  
  文獻﹕
  Thewlis and Lawrence, 1990, p.58, no.88
  Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no.88
  Treasury 5, 編號679
  
  展覽﹕
  香港藝術館，1994年3月～6月
  National Museum, Singapore, November 1994-February 1995
  
  說明﹕
  這種微小的鼻煙壺最好挾在母指和食指之間，放在掌心就太不自在了。
  
  在早期的玻璃鼻煙壺上，凹斂底不多見。吹製的煙壺自然而然地形成凸形底，只有用模子的才可以吹製平底或凹底的。如果有圈足的話，就要有雕師來雕琢，多雕幾毫米質料作出凹底沒甚麼不可能，但一般來說，從整體的設計來看，那是畫蛇添足了。本壺的微凹底顯然不是偶然的，其他的細節都處理得很精確，雕師作凹底一定是有目的的。
  
  本壺玻璃中呈相當的漩渦，也具大小的氣泡，這都是早期的特色。跟一般的十七世紀的玻璃，全體的印象是輝煌和清晰。只有用放大鏡才能辨出雜質。

---

Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

---

Auction terms and conditions