Message #23180

[rpfstoneman]

All,

This may be a bit off topic, but it is worth mentioning for those that don’t know.  Small treasured articles such as snuff bottle have often been buried with their owners when they passed on to the afterlife.  With continued expansion of many cities in China a number of burial locations have been encountered and/or reclaimed (some would say looted) for building construction.  This was particularly prevalent during the construction of the Olympic venue locations in Beijing.   Over the years a number of dealers (ex., Wang & Co.) have acquired oxidized bottles from these old burial sites.  A number of glass and stone snuff bottles have been supposedly been recovered, re-polished, and have found their way onto the open market.   Now if this has occurred with these two materials, I would also expect to find the full range of snuff bottle materials to be in said burial sites.  Glass and stone generally hold up the damp ground oxidizing conditions OK, but the organics and some metals not so good.   I was not kidding when I said George’s bottle looked as though it came out of a burial site. 

Charll