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Chinese Snuff Bottle Discussion Forum 中國鼻煙壺討論論壇
March 28, 2024, 06:53:25 am
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Christmas in June!

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George
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« Reply #20 on: June 13, 2017, 12:12:03 pm »



George,

I'm curious if you can describe in more detail or lead me somewhere which describes the process of the "iron brush" technique of carving by hand?  I have experience in wood carving, but is the process similar when carving in stone or glass?  Specifically, what is the type of chisel used, and does the carver go over a stroke once, or make several passes
to get the desired characters?  Aside from the good point about seeing the depth of the strokes on the ends of the lines
as to whether they're from a rotary tool or not, what are some other clues to look for?  By my untrained eye, my first conclusion when looking at this bottle is that the "overshoots" are done with a power tool.

.

The overshoots are a good indicator that the incised mark was done with an iron brush/chisel and I have not seen overshoots like seen on Cathy's bottle done with use of power rotary tool.  They usually indicate that the carver sort of slipped out at the end of a push with the chisel.  I have not seen any pictures of a truly old iron brush.

Number of passes depend on hardness of material.

I like the book, The Brush The Stone by Christopher Randall..

Here are a few favored archived posts via the Facebook group called Collecting Antique Chinese Jade.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/319030194928738/permalink/335092969989127/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/319030194928738/permalink/424028427762247/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/319030194928738/permalink/424028424428914/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/319030194928738/permalink/476746555823767/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/319030194928738/permalink/476743779157378/

The same clues can be used on different minerals, and glass.
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Rube
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« Reply #21 on: June 13, 2017, 12:47:17 pm »

Thanks George!
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« Reply #22 on: June 13, 2017, 05:20:23 pm »

Quote
but if you have Robert Hall C.S.B. #2, from 1989, he had the bases photographed and they are with the bottles

Hey Joey, I looked those up but they are Daoguang marks - I have all of the Robert Hall pdf's so will try to get through them and see if I can find Qianlong marks on faceted glass.

George, while I was looking through 1-5 (all I've had time to look at so far) I found another Wang Xisan enameled glass reign mark! And thanks for the posts from the Jade Guy Wink - those are great posts. I especially like his quizzes!

I saw your review of Randall's book on Amazon and got the book - thanks for the reference!

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Cathy
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« Reply #23 on: June 13, 2017, 09:37:59 pm »

You need to REREAD what I wrote.
I stated that I bought 6 glass bottles from the Marian Mayer collection with genuine incised reign marks. #2 in my 1987 catalogue was not octagonal either. There were a lot more Palace Workshops small overlay bottles with incised marks and other glass bottles with incised marks,
than the octagonal examples.
Look at ALL genuine incised marks on glass bottles from provenanced collections, not just those on octagonal ones.


Quote
but if you have Robert Hall C.S.B. #2, from 1989, he had the bases photographed and they are with the bottles

Hey Joey, I looked those up but they are Daoguang marks - I have all of the Robert Hall pdf's so will try to get through them and see if I can find Qianlong marks on faceted glass.

George, while I was looking through 1-5 (all I've had time to look at so far) I found another Wang Xisan enameled glass reign mark! And thanks for the posts from the Jade Guy Wink - those are great posts. I especially like his quizzes!

I saw your review of Randall's book on Amazon and got the book - thanks for the reference!


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Joey Silver (Si Zhouyi 義周司), collecting snuff bottles since Feb.1970

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« Reply #24 on: June 14, 2017, 12:21:25 am »

Dear Joey,

Oh, to be honest I had to read that a couple more times to understand what you meant.
So you bought bottles from MM's collection, and some of the base marks are shown in Robert Hall's CSB #2, and I should look at "all" the marks, not just the faceted ones.

Hope I'm understanding correctly now. Wink

She did seem to favor the small glass bottles and had some beautiful ones!

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« Reply #25 on: June 14, 2017, 04:51:18 am »

Cathy,

    You got it in one!
Your target  (in this case) is learning about genuine incised marks on glass snuff bottles and other small glasswares (such as water droppers, brushwashers), NOT just genuine incised marks on octagonal bottles. Because all the small Imperial glasswares would have been incised in the same location (the Glass workshops in the Forbidden City), by the same people. There would have been a small number who produced the incised or inscribed marks, whether in the Imperial Workshops or in the Imperial Porcelain Works in Jingdezhen.

   It was estimated by the late Robert Kleiner, who'd researched Imperial marks on B & W wares in the Qing Dynasty while he worked for Sotheby's, that only 2 or 3 men inscribed ALL the Yongzheng Imperial marked small porcelain wares (such as snuff bottles, etc.)!


Dear Joey,

Oh, to be honest I had to read that a couple more times to understand what you meant.
So you bought bottles from MM's collection, and some of the base marks are shown in Robert Hall's CSB #2, and I should look at "all" the marks, not just the faceted ones.

Hope I'm understanding correctly now. Wink

She did seem to favor the small glass bottles and had some beautiful ones!


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« Reply #26 on: June 14, 2017, 05:18:47 am »

Cathy,

Speaking of Robert Kleiner, in his White Wings Collection, there are a number of nice octagonal faceted bottles to view, though none with marks. It's a beautiful book ( I have my mother's signed copy) and though I haven't read it entirely, I enjoyed seeing that Joey was mentioned in the early pages!

Cheers,


Rheuben.
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« Reply #27 on: June 14, 2017, 11:36:55 am »

Quote
Because all the small Imperial glasswares would have been incised in the same location (the Glass workshops in the Forbidden City), by the same people. There would have been a small number who produced the incised or inscribed marks, whether in the Imperial Workshops or in the Imperial Porcelain Works in Jingdezhen.

   It was estimated by the late Robert Kleiner, who'd researched Imperial marks on B & W wares in the Qing Dynasty while he worked for Sotheby's, that only 2 or 3 men inscribed ALL the Yongzheng Imperial marked small porcelain wares (such as snuff bottles, etc.)!

Thanks Joey - this is really great information. I wonder if there has ever been a study done on identifying them - something like a handwriting analysis? I am trying to accumulate all the pictures I can of the reign marks on the enameled glass bottles of Ye Bengqi and Wang Xisan, and so will expand my research to include the incised marks on glass.

Sounds like a good summer (maybe longer) project!

Rheuben, I didn't have the White Wings Collection so have purchased it - thanks for the reference!


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« Reply #28 on: June 14, 2017, 08:34:16 pm »

Cathy,

    My pleasure. You need to understand something - in 1976 I visited the late Isadore Lample in Santa Monica CA, and he had an octagonal SB in ruby red glass, 18th C. Palace Workshops, very like yours, but no mark. I did not like it, feeling it looked European. Which is no surprise, since the shape was copying European pocket watches received as tribute from Europeans to the Qianlong Emperor. He'd bought it from Hugh Moss.
    I did not buy one till 1981, when I bought #1 from YF Yang, and #2 and #3 as well; all 18th C. and all Palace Workshops (I got some great glass from YF in 1981!  Wink). But only the Purple one had a mark. I saw possibly 50 octagonal bottles before 1990, and if 10-15% had incised marks, it was a lot.

    In  Sept./Oct. 1980, the late Marian Mayer of Cape Cod Mass., exhibited her glass SBs at Steuben Glass on 5th Ave. in NYC. She had 20 with incised Imperial marks, all genuine, out of the 130 displayed (she had about 250 glass SBs in total, most gifted to the Corning Museum, Corning, NY after her death in 1988). She had four octagonal among the 20.

      I asked her how she'd found 4 octagonal bottles with marks (2 Qianlong, one Jiaqing, and one Tongzhi; the two octagonal blue ones with Daoguang marks I bought from Bob Hall in 1989, but which had also come from her collection, Hugh Moss found for her after 1980). She was not that friendly to me, but opined that, "They are as rare as hens' teeth, but perseverance will win the day."  That was true till the early 1990s, when 2 HK collectors 'demanded' marked octagonal
bottles; and got lots of them. Whether the bottles are genuine and the marks not, or whether both bottles and marks are modern, I won't say; but I will say three more things:

1. In 1996, there was  a booth in the dealers' room  (all PRC 'dealers' actually, mainly modern Inside Painters - none of the  Western dealers had been able to negotiate the complex PRC laws) at the Beijing part of our Beijing/Hong Kong convention, selling octagonal bottles - the colours were 'right' ( correct shades of ruby red, Imperial yellow, purple, etc.), the finish was 'right', etc., for from US$50 - US$350 each, and from 20 mm  to 65 mm in height. They must have had 60-80 octagonal bottles on display as well as other shapes - they had an Imperial yellow basket weave for US$350 that I still regret not buying! It was so good, that if it had come up later in the Bloch collection I could have been fooled! I am serious.

2. Clare Chu in her home, in Feb.2014, had a line of 7 modern octagonal bottles of assorted sizes stood on a display, all bought by her in Shanghai Curio Market for US$20-50 each.

3. I honestly believe your bottle is 'right', though I can't tell about the mark's authenticity.

Dear Rube,

     Thank you. I ended up buying 17 of the IPSBs from White Wings, though, sadly, none of the superb Ding Erzhongs.
Best,
Joey
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Joey Silver (Si Zhouyi 義周司), collecting snuff bottles since Feb.1970

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« Reply #29 on: June 14, 2017, 11:55:45 pm »

Dear Joey,

MM must have been a character! I laughed at Robert Hall's description about their rocky relationship.

I can relate to her, as you know, I am also very opinionated!

This month marks my one year anniversary of collecting snuff bottles and I've been very fond of the faceted ones since the beginning.

I have several - some octagon, some other shapes, but none with marks.  I can relate to MM saying the marked ones are as rare as hen's teeth and appreciate the significance if mine is genuine. Wink

The very first one I bought for something like $20 on EBay is still one of my favorites even though it's most likely fake. I think the cutout on the bottom is probably a clue although the glass always seemed right to me.



There are two others I suspect may be old.  Both of them are extremely light weight. This one the most likely candidate:






 

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« Reply #30 on: June 15, 2017, 06:14:50 am »

She was a character! A real no-nonsense New England 'dame'.
But of all the 'little old ladies' in the Society, Alice McReynolds was my favourite. Allie was as no-nonsense and unpretentious as Marian Swayze Mayer, but always unfailingly polite, and a great dinner partner or guest or hostess.

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