Footnotes

• Treasury 3, no. 400
  
  灰石鼻煙壺
  
  A limestone snuff bottle
  
  Fossiliferous limestone; reasonably well hollowed, with a flat lip and recessed flat foot surrounded by a protruding rounded footrim
  1750–1900
  Height: 6.99 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.65/1.55 cm
  Stopper: jadeite; vinyl collar
  
  Condition: Possible tiny trim to a chip in the inner footrim; otherwise, workshop condition
  
  Illustration: Watercolour by Peter Suart
  
  Provenance:
  Hugh M. Moss Ltd. (1985)
  
  Published:
  Treasury 3, no. 400
  
  Limestone covers a family of stone where calcite is the principal ingredient. In its crystalline form it is marble, of which one variety is known to the snuff-bottle collector as aragonite, while in its sedimentary form it acquires all sorts of different names. As a rule, snuff-bottle collectors tend to refer to most of this material as fossilized coral, which much of it probably is. The structure here would certainly be consistent with coral fossils . The stone was, we think, indigenous to China and probably available from at least the eighteenth century onwards, although it is another material that is so rarely found outside of snuff bottles that it must owe its popularity to this Qing art form. As far as we know, nothing predating the Qing period is known from the stone, although its softness and fragility might mitigate against an extant body of works surviving from the Ming or earlier, assuming they were rare to begin with.
  
  灰石鼻煙壺
  
  含化石的石灰巖；掏膛適宜 , 平唇， 平斂底突出圓棱圈足
  1750–1900
  高﹕ 6.99 厘米
  口徑/唇徑： 0.65/1.55 厘米
  蓋﹕ 翡翠；乙烯基座
  
  狀態敘述： 圈足內壁或有剜去的微小缺口；此外，出坊狀態
  
  帶有彼德小話 (Peter Suart) 水彩畫
  
  來源:
  Hugh M. Moss Ltd. (1985)
  
  文獻﹕
  Treasury 3, 編號 400
  
  石灰岩是以方解石為主要成分的碳酸鹽岩。結晶的是大理石，大理石的一種是鼻煙壺藏家稱之為霰石的，而沉淀性的名稱有五花八門。鼻煙壺藏家常常以"成化石的珊瑚"稱之，其中一種材料的確是由如珊瑚類群生動物組成的。這種材料是中國固有的，從十八世紀起就被採用。因為硬度不高，清代以前的石灰岩物件不應該有多少現存的。除了鼻煙壺以外，石灰岩作的物件寥寥無幾，這種材料被採用好像是跟鼻煙壺的興盛有關係的。

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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