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Chinese Snuff Bottle Discussion Forum 中國鼻煙壺討論論壇
March 28, 2024, 06:10:13 am
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2 plain bottles, are they too plain ?

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Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush
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« Reply #20 on: March 04, 2017, 04:22:58 am »

Dear Adrian,
if you continue thinking that what you see is exactly corresponding to the real thickness, then we are speaking two different languages and we cannot understand each other. You are ignoring what I have clearly shown, you can’t ignore the evidence. Look at the picture here below. Do you think that the inside of the bottle really has that shape that we see at the base of the neck? That sudden, pronounced narrowing? It is evident that we are not seeing the reality, but a distorted image instead.
It seems also that you think that blown bottles are blown into a mould. It is not that, they are blown “on the fly” and shaped with spatulas and pliers when the glass is still malleable. That is the reason why we see inconsistencies in the curves of the shape.
What do you mean about the overlay “shou” bottle that you have shown, do you mean that the thickness of glass on the base is corresponding to the clear area? That area that starts in the lower part of the black character? If so, then you are wrong, that is not the thickness of the glass, that is just a distorted image. Please turn/tilt a bit the bottle and you will see how that “thickness” changes.
Dear Pat, sorry but I don’t understand. How you can say that you agree with my point while at the same time you believe that we are seeing the real unevenness? It makes no sense! My point is just to demonstrate, and I am convinced that I clearly have demonstrated it, that the unevenness that we see is not real, it is apparent. If you think so, then you must also believe that the sudden narrowing at the base of the neck of the bottle here below is real. The same about Adrian bottle. Why do you accept what we see at the mouth as a false image of the inner shape and believe at the same time that the image of the rest is real? It makes no sense. The point is that: we are looking at a distorted image of the inner shape, we are not looking at a cross section.
Kind regards
Giovanni


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« Reply #21 on: March 04, 2017, 05:36:09 am »

Hi Giovanni

Now that I see the red bottle I understand what you meant. Got it now. Thanks.
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« Reply #22 on: March 04, 2017, 06:09:17 am »

All,

I've been following this debate with interest. Putting aside Giovanni's logical and scientific explanations, one needs to bear in mind that bottles carved from a solid ingot are not at all common. Until fairly recently that is, when they started being used as blanks for better quality IP bottles. Apart from that, in over forty years of collecting I have only come across a handful of bottles hewn out of a solid chunk of glass. Of those I have handled, they are generally heavy and thick walled. The first impression is that they are made of quartz.

You also have to ask yourself why the lapidary would go to all that bother to create a thin walled (i.e. well hollowed, as Adrian's two examples) glass bottle, which could be produced so much more easily by blowing molten glass.

One of the reasons for creating a bottle from an ingot of glass was to produce them in colours and tones which do not exist in natural minerals. Hence, you tend to find them in ruby red, brilliant blues, and shades of green. Colourless, yellow, and smoky browns are all represented in the natural realm of quartz. There was no point in making glass imitations.

Tom
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« Reply #23 on: March 04, 2017, 07:04:15 am »

All,

This is a fascinating thread, in which I've learned from all points of view!
Regardless, I simply like the 2 plain bottles for what they are.

Cheers,

Rheuben.
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« Reply #24 on: March 04, 2017, 07:46:56 am »

Dear Tom,

Liu li chih, written by Sun Ting-ch'aun who was a high official at the very end of the Ming period, gives formulae for making different colours of glass and mentions glass imitations of jade ornaments, bowls, snuff bottles, burial jades, amber cigarette holders and cornelian jewellery as some things being copied in glass.

Po Shan was known to send ingots of various coloured glass as well as clear glass to Peking. It's well known that the Chinese excelled in imitating other materials in glass and they had a love of clear minerals (?) like rock crystal etc which may have been cheaper to imitate in glass than produce from naturally occurring materials and it's well known they weighted glass to continue the deception that it was made from the material it copied. Was hand carving weighted clear glass part of the deception to make people believe it was rock crystal or similar which would have to have been carved ?

I also think the inconsistency of the thickness in the side walls of the yellow bottle wouldn't occur in a mould. The glass is poured in moulds in a liquid state, all be it of a fairly non viscous state, but liquid enough to settle in a uniform thickness.

Now I have to defend those inconsistencies in the walls with Giovanni Wink

Regards, Adrian.

 
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« Reply #25 on: March 04, 2017, 08:31:34 am »

Dear Giovanni,

I don't believe that what I see is exactly corresponding to the real thickness of the glass. What I believe is that where glass curves or where glass ends there is a distortion which tricks the eye and where glass is thick and even slightly curved it can magnify to a degree.

Your red bottle seems to show a considerable narrowing at the base of the neck. I don't believe it narrows by that much but I believe it narrows to some degree and if you cut it in half the cross section would show that.

You and I are photographers so we know that lenses work due to the fact that glass refracts light differently to air. It alters the path of light rays passing through where those light rays hit the glass at any sort of angle and the thickness of the glass is relevant to how much the path of light is altered. The curvature of the glass at the base of the neck of your bottle is what tricks the eye and exaggerates the narrowing which has to be there in some degree.

The bottle I bought 15 odd years ago. Is it a trick of the eye that the interior is shaped like it is where it narrows half way down before widening again ? The shape of the inside is distorted from what it actually will be in cross section inside but the basic shape of the inside will not be that dissimilar to what is seen from the outside. The thickness of the glass magnifies the inside image.

You see inconsistencies in the thickness of the sides of my yellow bottle because there are inconsistencies and they are not on the outside. You can feel them on the inside by running something over them. Whether blown, blow moulded or moulded they wouldn't be there. You do not get uneven ridges on the insides of bottles produced in any of those ways, especially something as small as this is. Glass isn't lumpy like my mothers custard (shhhh, don't tell her I said that), it is a uniform liquid when molten that settles in a uniform way not an uneven one.

That's my opinion and I have no problem if yours still differs from mine.

Regards, Adrian.


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« Reply #26 on: March 04, 2017, 10:39:07 am »

Dear Adrian,
I guarantee that the narrowing is not there and you can see it in the pictures below. Besides that, in the first picture, look at the upper left side of the bottle. You can see that the thickness is not constant, on the shoulder is thicker then, before to reach the widest point of the bottle the thickness changes two times. That is normal for blown bottles, because they are not poured into stamps as you believe, they are blown on the fly, rotating the molten glass, and this produces differences in thickness here and there, absolutely typical for that work. 
Anyway, I do not want to insist too much, to me it is logical and demonstrated. I am also convinced as said elsewhere that the surface of a carved glass, even if perfectly polished, is different from the surface of a blown glass. Also, as said by Tom, it is a non sense to carve such simple bottle. Carving requires a lot of hours and it should be made only for special items.
Also, I don’t agree that glass imitating other materials like stones are carved from solid blocks. If so, it is absolutely easily identifiable because you will have the stone veins cut, and not following the curvature of the walls of the bottle.
Kind regards
Giovanni


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« Reply #27 on: March 04, 2017, 04:26:14 pm »

Dear Giovanni,

If I could I would put these pictures up beside each other for comparison but the workings of computers are something of a black art to me which should be left to the likes of Harry Potter. 

You say the thickness of your bottles side walls are inconsistent but I would suggest not in the way my yellow bottle is which shows if they are side by side. It is just over 2 inches tall, 52mm, so to have differences in thickness over such small lengths is unexplainable to me for a blown bottle.

I have a small collection of art glass and have watched glass blowers numerous times as it interests me so I know about blown glass compared to blown moulded or simply moulded. I think we are alike in that we have an interest in how our bottles may have been made and that is more important than us having any difference of opinion about things we are really guessing about and which we may never agree about. Differing opinions are how ideas progress so they never bother me.

Regards, Adrian. 


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« Reply #28 on: March 04, 2017, 06:48:18 pm »

Hi all

I think maybe it is time to watch Bill Patrick's video again on how man-made crystal (still glass) snuff bottles are still made today :



And here is an amber snuff bottle being produced. Certainly makes me respect any of these artists and carvers, regardless of whether old or new ...



Then finally one on carving agate:

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« Reply #29 on: March 05, 2017, 06:38:27 am »


Liu li chih, written by Sun Ting-ch'aun who was a high official at the very end of the Ming period, gives formulae for making different colours of glass and mentions glass imitations of jade ornaments, bowls, snuff bottles, burial jades, amber cigarette holders and cornelian jewellery as some things being copied in glass.

Po Shan was known to send ingots of various coloured glass as well as clear glass to Peking. It's well known that the Chinese excelled in imitating other materials in glass and they had a love of clear minerals (?) like rock crystal etc which may have been cheaper to imitate in glass than produce from naturally occurring materials and it's well known they weighted glass to continue the deception that it was made from the material it copied. Was hand carving weighted clear glass part of the deception to make people believe it was rock crystal or similar which would have to have been carved ?


Hi Adrian,
     That's exactly my point. Glass ingots were were carved into highly valued items, including snuff bottles. Not trying to denigrate your two bottles; I like their elegant simplicity. But they are not of a style or quality associated with top end glass bottles, which are the only ones likely to have been carved from a solid chunk of glass.

Pat,
     Thanks for the video links. I'd seen the first one before, but not the other two.

Tom
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« Reply #30 on: March 05, 2017, 03:53:21 pm »

Dear Pat,

     THANK YOU!
     I'd not seen any of the videos before. I could not understand why you were insistent that the modern lead crystal bottles were hollowed out from a solid block of the glass; now I know. Seeing is believing.

     But I agree with Tom - only the top end of glass bottles would have received the care needed to produce them in the period before power tools.

    I think the yellow glass bottle Adrian posted is 18th C. and could be Imperial.

     Best,
Joey
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« Reply #31 on: March 05, 2017, 04:42:43 pm »

Dear Joey,
sorry I beg to differ, I think that you are a bit optimist. I doubt that an auction house or an expert that can handle that bottle will think the same.
Dear Adrian, I am totally convinced that we are discussing on an illusion, an image that is not representing the reality. To me, your bottle is not so thin. I invite you to inspect it not in transparency, but by lightening the inside of the bottle and pay attention to the reflection of light on the inner surface, to see where it really is. Please look at the picture below. The yellow arrows are marking the inner surface of the neck, there is not the slightest doubt about this, do you agree? Inside the neck, we have just a straight hole for a short length. That we can faintly see in the pictures and it is enlightened by the yellow arrows. Now, if the dark contour is representing the thickness of the glass, enlightened by the red arrows, can you explain how such thickness switches abruptly from the yellow to red arrows? It is clearly impossible, and in fact such darker contour goes up until the top. The answer is evident and only one: that darker contour is not representing the thickness of the glass. I can see such phenomenon also in clear glass bottles; I don’t know how it originates, may be by multiple reflections between the inner and outer surface of the glass, I don’t know. But I am sure that if you will inspect carefully the bottle you will see that the real thickness is not that that we think it is in your picture.
Kind regards
Giovanni


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« Reply #32 on: March 05, 2017, 04:47:53 pm »

Dear Joey,

I won't drop the yellow one then  Cheesy

Dear Pat,

Thank you for putting up the videos, I have seen them all before but it's good to have them in one place and the amber bottle one was one I wanted to post in another thread but had problems linking to it.

Dear Tom,

I am taking notes from all my books that relate to anything about Chinese glass manufacture and will add more notes when a book solely about Chinese glass arrives. Once done I will try and correlate everything together and post something that may help anyone interested as glass snuff bottles are the most common form.

Regards, Adrian.

 
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« Reply #33 on: March 05, 2017, 05:02:16 pm »

Dear Giovanni,

I am agreeing with you that what we assume we are seeing as the thickness is not the true thickness.

What I am also saying is the outside of the bottle is perfectly smooth so the inconsistencies that you can clearly see down both sides when seeing the "apparent thickness" can only be caused by inconsistencies in the smoothness of the inside of the bottle and I have confirmed I can feel those inconsistencies by running something over the inside of the bottle. I do not believe you can have such inconsistencies in a blown bottle or a blown moulded bottle.

I will have to come and see you as a good excuse to go for a proper drive in my AC Cobra and I could bring both bottles and another of wine to share as we inspect them.

Regards, Adrian.
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« Reply #34 on: March 05, 2017, 05:18:13 pm »

Hi Pat,

Thank you so much for posting the videos. They were very informative. I appreciate your sharing them.

Best,

Toni-Lee
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« Reply #35 on: March 05, 2017, 08:42:46 pm »


I will have to come and see you as a good excuse to go for a proper drive in my AC Cobra and I could bring both bottles and another of wine to share as we inspect them.


Hi Adrian,

I'd love to hitch a ride when you do decide to go.......but not sure how well my sphincter would take it.    Undecided

Tom
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« Reply #36 on: March 06, 2017, 04:08:57 am »

Dear Adrian,
after my last post, now you say that “I am agreeing with you that what we assume we are seeing as the thickness is not the true thickness.” The problem is that up to now everybody here was convinced that what we see is the inner surface, in other words that the glass thickness was very thin. A discussion based on a false assumption.
Kind regards
Giovanni
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« Reply #37 on: March 06, 2017, 08:18:53 am »

Dear Tom,

As the seats are covered in a very nice perforated leather then I would have to insist on you wearing an approved make of incontinence underwear, at least for the journey down after which the required level of control should have been reached.

A very pretty Eastern European care worker from the local old people's home recommends a rubberised make with a brand name of "Cack Catchers" which are available via discrete enquiry on an under the counter basis from most good chemists or can be sent under plain packaging through the post.

Regards, Adrian.
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« Reply #38 on: March 06, 2017, 10:51:20 am »

It is amazing you own an AC Cobra !  Such stunning cars !
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« Reply #39 on: March 06, 2017, 11:11:39 am »

Adrian/Tom

This would be appropriately called a '***t in your pants' experience where I hail from , but I guess you would call in xxxxx trousers or nickers ... Lol
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