Message #49101

[Wattana]

Dear Giovanni,

I was deliberately trying to avoid using the term 'Master of the Rocks School', as it clashes with a completely different period and group of artists who have nothing to do with snuff bottles. In several of his earlier publications Hugh Moss places stone snuff bottles into different groups according to similarities in style of carving and types of material used. For bottles of quartz or silica he calls these groups A, B, C, D, etc. Not exactly exciting names. So later these groups were given names like 'Official School', 'Rustic Crystal Master School', and so on. Similar "school" names were created for jade bottles. But I am going off track.

Rube's bottle fits into a group or school (whatever you want to call it!) that predominantly favours yellow-green nephrite jade, utilizing the russet coloured 'skin' as a canvas on which to carve the subject matter, generally leaving the yellow-green areas plain, without decoration. There are stylistic similarities which link some bottles in this group to ones made of other types of stone. This would suggest that more than one workshop was producing this kind of bottle, and over a long period, so that other influences were both absorbed and dispersed along the way.

I realize this may lead to more questions rather than answering your question! 

Regards,
Tom