Dear Charll,
I don't believe for one minute that those bottles, sold by Dick (Ning) Wang, Hugh Moss, and Robert Hall, are genuine or were dug up in graves. I believe they are ALL FAKE.
Have you seen the written records of any documented digs which found such bottles? I haven't.
As Clare Chu said to someone who asked her if she had any, "No I do not, and I would not. I believe them to be fakes, but even if they are genuine, they should be the property of the Chinese government and people. How would one describe it on an invoice, "looted from a grave, by repute?!"
I asked 20+ Chinese at the convention, "If you were to be buried with an artifact, what material would it be?" All answered Jade. None answered glass or cloisonne.
I ask all ethnic Chinese on the Forum. What material if any, would you like to be buried with, after death, when you are over 120, G-D Willing?
Joey
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
