Glass snuff bottle

[micaela]

I see this bottle and I like soo much. But before buy I like know is old. And If I buy well.
Please tell me you think.
Thanks in advance.
Mica

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Micaela,
    It looks right, but I can't tell what shade of red it is. Is it a dark red, or a light red? If a dark red, it could be a genuine antique, ca. 1800-1880, though it could still be later 20th C. If lighter red, it is definitely modern.
Can you photograph the mouth and the base better, and the colour in natural light?
Joey

[Wattana]

Hi Mica,

Here is a modern one from my collection, with very similar 'chilong' design in dark red.
I would say your bottle has 80% chance of being modern, 20% old.

Tom

[Steven]

Without more detail info of the carving and both top rim and base rim, I will vote it old, the color looks right to me, so is the overall looking.

Steven

[George]

Better pics would help, but sure looks like this opaque white body with the suffused bubbles a modern imitation..  Just does not look right..

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Tom,
    If I had seen yours posted and was asked, I would have said that the numbers were reversed (80% antique and 20% modern), but you say it is modern and I trust your judgement. That means that they are now succeeding in copying the correct shades of the old bottles. And the camphor glass background looks right to me too. Glad I don't collect those any more. It was so much easier before 1990...
Joey

Hi Mica,

Here is a modern one from my collection, with very similar 'chilong' design in dark red.
I would say your bottle has 80% chance of being modern, 20% old.

Tom

[Wattana]

Dear Joey,

If you are referring to my crimson overlay on camphor, it was sold to me as modern 8 years ago, from a shop selling modern bottles. At US$130 it was perhaps a little over-priced by ebay standards today, but the chilongs are well carved and detailed, and I liked it.

My real regret is that stress cracks have appeared recently, despite the fact it is stored in a compartmentalized drawer in a constant and dark environment. Eleven other modern glass overlay bottles bought 15 years ago have all cracked, crizzled, or totally disintegrated. This experience has completely put me off collecting glass overlay bottles, modern or old, and I am disposing of them all.

Tom

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Tom,
    That has NEVER happened to me, in over 44 years of collecting antique glass overlay snuff bottles (I still have one or two, out of my group of 18 assorted bottles in Ireland (which I have with my Nehrite Jade SBs and B & W Underglazed Porcelain SBs).
    I had one Kangxi period overlay, of purple on clear, with fine crizzling on the interior surface of the bottle, but in the 15 years I owned it (1978 to 1993), it was fine.
Best,
 Joey

[OIB]

Joey, Tom,

It looks like the Qing technicians had better skills in making glass bottle than modern ones.
The modern glass bottles ( the unleaded ones ) were made by Hebei People, smaller than Shandong ones. But Hebei did not produce good bottles. Many crack some years later !

Inn Bok

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Inn Bok,
     Is Boshan in Shandong Province?
I understood that a lot of Chinese glass was made there during the Qing Dynasty, and that glass production there dated as far back as the Han Dynasty, paralleling glass in the Roman Empire, which was actually almost a Jewish monopoly at that time.
Best,
 Joey

[richy88]

Hi Joey

Yes, Boshan is in Shandong province and a main production town for glass.

For your reference.

Regards.


Richard

[Wattana]

Dear Joey,
     Fifteen years in the life of a Kangxi bottle is a relatively short span of time. A glass bottle of that age should not show any signs of change now, after so many years.  
     Inn Bok appears to have found the reason why so many modern overlay glass bottles are cracking - poor control of the glass-making process by small workshops in Hebei. This topic was discussed quite extensively in the thread on "crizzling" last year. The experience has put me off glass bottles (there are enough other categories to enjoy).
    
Tom

[richy88]

Hi Tom

I fully agreed with you.

Moreover, glass bottles tend to be mass produced, resulting in many bottles of the same design (may be of different background or colour).

I am still very much in favour of stone bottles as most of them are unique and cannot be easily reproduced!

Regards.


Richard

[Lamlam]

Dear all,

How would you date this glass bottle?

Thanks,

Curt

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Curt,
    While it is a little pale for genuine 18th/19th C. glass, it could have 'passed', but the cracks I can see in it mean it must be from the modern Hebei glas we've been discussing.
Best,
 Shabbat Shalom,
Joey

[Lamlam]

Thank you Joey

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Guys,

   In 1990, we (the ICSBS) had our annual convention in Hong Kong. One afternoon, we were hosted to a reception at the China Arts And Crafts in Hong Kong, celebrating their 30th anniversary. There was a display of modern overlay glass bottles on offer, and what a display it was!

  Some of us were laughing so hard, we were in danger of splitting our sides. Others were merely making snide comments. The bottles were SO WRONG! The colours were wrong. The styles of design were so wrong. And the carved (wheel-ground?) edges were so sharp, you could cut yourself.

  I had spoken to one or two of the gentlemen hosting us, before this event, and they cornered me now to ask what was so riotously funny. I said to them what I've encapsulated in the previous paragraph. They asked how they could correct it.

 As someone with a mild case of Asperger's would (since no-one had warned me not to), I said that if they wanted to produce bottles that resembled those of the high point of Qing Glass Overlay, this is what they should do:
1. The Colours. The colours were all wrong; they should take genuine 18th and 19th C. examples, and copy the shades exactly; not any old shade of red, but the exact same one in the ruby red originals. The same with the deep green; ditto the dark purple, etc.
2. The Overlay. They shouldn't 'gild the lily' with designs which were OTT (Over The Top), and did not mirror the originals.
3. The Feel. The bottles felt like they'd just come from the factory. I said that they should take the bottles up to the Re-Education Camps in Xinjiang, have the inmates rub a bottle in their hands for 10 hrs. a day for a few months, till it felt like an 18th C. example.

  THEN, I saw the shocked faces of my friends, who LATER berated me for 'giving away the secrets', and said lamely,"But I'm just joking". They replied, "Of course. There are NO Re-Education Camps in Xinjiang."

  Jump forward six years, to our 1996 convention in Beijing and Hong Kong. The same crowd had a display case in the middle of the Dealers' Room in the Beijing Kempinski, our Convention venue at the time.

  The colours were all correct for 18th & 19th C. overlay and plain glass snuff bottles. The carving was spot on. It was NOT OTT. There were Imperial Yellow bottles in 'rice pattern' design (also called 'basket weave'), and in an undulating wave pattern. And they FELT like 18th C. bottles. Every one could pass for an 18th C. or early to mid 19th C. Imperial Glass Works bottle. Especially all the octagonal facetted examples.

  If you had put one of those Imperial Yellow rice pattern bottles in pale lemon yellow in the collection of the BM (British Museum), I would not have batted an eye! Amazing!
 
  With these cracked (and disintegrating) bottles, at least, we have no problem differentiating genuine from modern fake.
Shabbat Shalom,
Joey