Footnotes

• Treasury 5, no. 1019
  
  米綠套紅玻璃海屋添籌圖鼻煙壺
  揚州，1830～1890
  
  A ruby-red and greenish-beige glass 'crane and bats' snuff bottle
  
  
  Transparent ruby-red and semi-transparent pale greenish-beige glass, both with scattered air bubbles of various sizes; with a flat lip and recessed convex foot surrounded by a protruding flattened footrim; carved as a single overlay with some carving in the ground colour with a continuous scene of a rocky promontory rising out of the ocean, with two bats flying above it and a crane, holding a tally in its beak, flying in front of the rising sun
  Probably Yangzhou, 1830-1890
  Height: 6.32 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.62/1.78 cm
  Stopper: carnelian; turquoise finial
  
  Condition: workshop condition
  
  Provenance:
  Wing Hing, Hong Kong (1985)
  
  Published:
  Kleiner 1987, no. 130
  Treasury 5, no. 1019
  
  Exhibited:
  Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, October 1987
  Creditanstalt, Vienna, May-June 1993
  
  Lacking multiple overlay cinnabar-red glass or higher-relief carving, this bottle appears, at first glance, to represent a standard example of the lower-relief style. Upon closer inspection, however, we can identify four features indicating its true transitional nature. The subject matter appears more often in the higher-relief group; the rocks are similarly emphasized with splashes of the overlay colour; the bats are rendered in a decorative style, and the colour of the ground, although paler than usual, is one otherwise confined to the multiple-overlay group. With the exception of this bottle, there are no known recorded examples of the painterly style with caramel-coloured grounds. Linking it to the lower-relief group is the use of ruby-red glass, unusual but not unknown on the higher-relief bottles but a staple of the painterly style.
  
  The carving here is of exceptional quality, with a ground plane of outstanding formal integrity and very well-matched foot, and neck rim. The latter is the less well controlled, unusual in that the neck-rims of this school are frequently well matched to the overlay colour, while the foot rims are not.
  
  The subject depicted here was discussed under Sale 2, lot 69. Under lot 44 in the present auction, we suggested that a certain glass overlay technique can sometimes produce an effect reminiscent of 'ink-play' agate carving, where the inclusions in the stone create the possibilities that the artist must discover and interpret. In this bottle is it not only the use of the red layer for selected portions of the island in the sea carved from the ground-colour glass that gives this impression; the gradation of the red from pale to more intense suggests the natural vagaries of a coloured streak in stone.
  
  米綠套紅玻璃福壽圖鼻煙壺
  
  玉米絲地套透明寶石紅料，二者涵稀稀拉拉的大小氣泡；平唇，凸斂底，突出弄平的圈足；刻添籌圖，地面有所雕刻
  擬屬揚州，1830-1890
  高﹕ 6.32 厘米
  口經/唇經： 0.62/1.78 厘米
  蓋： 紅白玉髓；綠松石頂飾
  
  狀態敘述﹕出坊狀態
  
  來源﹕
  Wing Hing, Hong Kong (1985)
  
  文獻﹕
  Kleiner 1987, 編號130
  Treasury 5, 編號1019
  
  展覽﹕
  Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, October 1987
  Creditanstalt, Vienna, May-June 1993
  
  說明﹕
  本壺的雕刻藝術精美凝煉。紅料的錯置和淡深的不同的效果有一點像瑪瑙巧雕的美術效果，好像是玻璃涵有天然的雜質，雕師要按雜質的布置來設計或"發現"潛在的圖案。亦可參見本場拍賣品號 44。
  
  關於海屋添籌這個題林，參閱第二場拍賣會，拍賣品號69。
  
  

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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