A SUPERB CARVED EMERALD-GREEN GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing, 1730-1795
Of tapering rectangular form with a cylindrical neck with wide mouth, and with a neatly carved rectangular footrim, each main face with a raised panel carved in Mughal style within the frame with a scrolling leafy lotus flower-head, the narrow sides each carved with mock mask-and-ring handles; stopper.
2 3/8in (6cm) high
Footnotes:
1730-1795 寶石綠料胎刻開光蓮花及舖首啣環鼻煙壺一件
御製 或為北京宮廷作坊製

Provenance:
Acquired January 2007
Joan and Ted Dorf Collection, no. 354

Exhibited:
The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD., September 30 – December 9, 2018

This finely carved green glass bottle belongs to a group thought to be carved from a solid block of glass. This is indicated by the heavy weight in relation to the thickness of the walls and the interior surface of the glass which exhibits fine polishing marks. By the end of the eighteenth-century, jade workers were employed in the cutting and grinding rooms of the Palace Workshops to finish glass objects, including snuff bottles. Regardless of the style of the bottles, the majority of these bottles carved from a solid block were green in color, although not all of them are as finely carved as this intense emerald-green example with its scrolling lotus flower-head in Mughal style. Conceivably, it may have been made in the imperial workshops to imitate the finest emerald-green jade, a stone rarely used for snuff bottles.

An outstanding snuff bottle, elegant and imposing, in excellent condition.