Dear Charll,

   Both bottles, your's and John's, are incised with CLEAR overglazing.
And if it is Chinese, it's called 'An Hua' unless it's Annamese ware from Hue in Vietnam,
in which case it might be 'An Hue'... 
Best,
Joey

 

Giovanni, noted on the slip over glaze terminology.  I was just quoting what others had written in regard to An Hue.  Yes, it is more often the reference to an incised design that is glazed over.

Both John's and my bottle are incised with overglazing. 

Charll

Dear Charll,
very nice bottle! Surely soft paste because of the crackled glaze and especially for lack of translucency, as you said.
But there are a couple of points that I would like to mention. Anhua, for what I understand it, is only referred to incised, carved or impressed decoration, not for decoration made with a white slip over the glaze, which is known with the Italian words “bianco sopra bianco” (white over white). But, unless it is matter of pictures, the decoration on your bottle is impressed to me, not made with the bianco sopra bianco technique.
By the position of the shadows in the picture, the decorated areas look recessed, as resulting for pressing the mold.
I am less sure about the very nice bottle shown by John; the decoration there looks incised, but it could be impressed there too.
Am I right or is it mater of picture?
Govanni

Charll, great bottle! My similar example I posted earlier with the neck replaced with white nephrite [100mm].

Dear Charll,

   A wonderful bottle and well catalogued, with one curious [OK, two! 'An Hue' - was it from Hue
in Vietnam?] mention: "...possibly Jingdezhen kilns."
It is almost definitely from the Jingdezhen kilns, since it is soft paste porcelain...
I don't know if there were porcelain kilns in the Imperial City Compound
producing soft paste porcelain works, and there could have been.
But I wonder if you meant 'the Jingdezhen Imperial Kilns'.
And again, I would say definitely. That is an Imperial five clawed dragon,
and the very large size notwithstanding I believe it was produced to be used
in one of the Imperial Palaces, not by the Emperor, but by one of the Princes/Eunuchs/etc.
EVERYTHING surrounding the Emperor and in the Imperial Palaces had to have a certain
level of Ritual Purity, thus everything had to come from sources with a high 'Kashrut' {ritual purity} level

While most people today don't have any concept like this, for Religious Jews like myself, it still has meaning,
though obviously not the same restrictions as  the Qing Court...
Best,
Joey

All, finally did some better photography of 'An Hua' Dragon Pillar that in the 1st post of "100 Years of Concentric Rings".  That say it still difficult to get good pictures of the bottle. 

Porcelain Dragon Pillar Snuff Bottle:
Soft paste ‘An Hua’ decorated dragon pillar bottle of cylinder form.  Guan ware style glaze of brown stain crackles with finer white crackling between.  A highly detailed design of a 5-clawed imperial dragon with blue eyes incised onto the bottle body in white on white An Hua decoration.   A reduced ground bottle lip with a matched bone collar as support for a red glass stopper and ivory spoon.  Thirteen concentric ring unglazed base.  Height is 9.4 cm (3 3/4 inches) by 3.1 cm in diameter.   

An Hua (Chinese: 暗花; pinyin: ànhuā) is a term used in Chinese ceramics meaning secret or veiled decoration; the designs being visible through transmitted light, produced either by incising the design into the porcelain before glazing and firing or by delicate slip-trailing in white slip on the porcelain body.  It is also called "secret" or "hidden decoration".

Period: c.1780-1850, possibly Jingdezhen kilns.

Condition: Lip looks to have been ground down; a probable lip restoration repair. 

Provenance: Quinn’s Auction Gallery, 14 Mar 2014 Sale, Lot 413
                     The Humphrey collection, Houston, Texas.

Date Acquired: 05/17/2014

Charll

P.S.- This bottle does not transmit light when back lit or lit from the interior.

Thanks Giovanni for the additional insight and thoughts.   Charll

Dear Charll, I agree that bottles with this feature are coiled. In Italian we call this technique as “cordino” (thin cord). One could think that the inner spirals are made by a scraping tool, but first at all they are rounded, and evenly spaced, thus it must be matter of having being built up with the “cordino” of clay.
My bottles of this type too are glazed inside and surely are old bottles.
Kind regards
Giovanni

Giovanni,

As you may have encountered bottles with concentric vertical ribbing (i.e., plausible result of coil ring construction) are thicker walled with uneven thickness.  The result is less transparency than smooth interior wall bottles that are made with traditional porcelain based clays or slip slurry.  Some of the old bottles (late 1790's to early 1800's) that are made of a very fine earthenware bisque with coil ring interiors have very little transparency to the point of being opaque when backlit or interior lit with light.

This is something I have found interesting over the years.  I tend to think that the earthen ware bisque and bottles with the interior ribbing are features of older bottles.  Also, they all seem to have glazed interiors as I recall.  The exact technique that results in these interior rings to me remains speculative, but coil ring body construction could be a source.  Someone out there should have the answer to explain this type of potting, but I have yet to encounter that person to get the definitive answer.

Charll

Dear John, Charll,
last night I did a quick inspection at my porcelain bottles of cylindrical form.
Most of them have a smooth inside and the thickness of the wall is thin, with great translucency.
But I have found three or four (it is not always very clear) that have spiral tracks inside, which are also recognizable for being heavier, and with less translucency due to thicker walls.
I never suspected that before, so thank you very much.
Kind regards
Giovanni