Smoky quartz bottle

[Joey]

Dear John,

  The bottle referenced in #77 is is superb.
Best,
Joey

[bambooforrest]

Joey, #77 is very high quality and I could see how someone would mistake it for glass. The next bottle is plain smoky quartz [69mm].This one is a little darker than most but it has a nice finish, footrim and hollowing.

[Wattana]

John,
The epitome of elegant simplicity!

Best,
Tom

[Joey]

Dear John,

   I agree with Tom.
But the bottle in post #77 still gets my vote,
for my favourite of the last 15 bottles.
Best,
Joey

[bambooforrest]

A smaller version of the previous bottle [50mm].

[Joey]

And yet another beauty, John.
You are spoiling us.
Best,
Joey

[Joey]

John,
   When did you acquire the bottle in post #77?
Joey

[bambooforrest]

Another early Sotheby's purchase. This is sort of a cross between a clear and smoky crystal [60mm]. It has nice carving of pine and rockwork.

[bambooforrest]

Another bottle similar to post #81. These bottles have a nice shape and feel [69mm].

[Joey]

Dear John,

  The last 4 bottles posted are very nice 19th C. examples,
But don’t reach the rarified level of many of your previous examples.
Still, in these days of beaucoup fakes, these are genuine early examples.
Best,
Joey

[bambooforrest]

The next example is from the Morris Lesser Collection [59mm]. It features a cat and butterfly carved useing the green and white skin of the stone. The front and back carved with peony and narcissus.

[Joey]

Dear John,

     I'm not a fan of bottles which are not easily carried in a pouch, unless they are snuff jarlets,
or meant for the Scholar's table.
This bottle looks like the type called 'cabinet bottles', made to be sold to Western travellers
from the opening up of the Far East by steamships in the mid-late 19th century.

    And I'm assuming from his name that Morris Lesser was Jewish and from Central or Eastern Europe,
as most people familiar with Jewish Onomastics would think.
But I am not familiar with the person or his collection.

   Best,
Joey

 

[bambooforrest]

Joey, Morris Lesser was a Philadelphia collector who passed in 1966. His sister kept the collection untouched until I bought the 92 bottles in 2009.

[Joey]

Oh, John.
I couldn't find a Morris Lesser, but a Jacob Lesser died in Philadelphia on 11.Sept.1966,
and is buried in Montefiore [Jewish] Cemetery in Jenkintown, Montgomery County, PA
in the Workmen's Circle plot.
But Morris Lesser and Jacob Lesser are probably the same person.
Just as I'm Joseph Baruch Silver,
chances are he was Jacob Morris [Yaacov Moshe] or Morris Jacob [Moshe Yaacov] Lesser.
And his sister preferred the Morris [Moshe in Hebrew or Moishie in Yiddish].
Since he's listed as Jacob in the Cemetery list, chances are Jacob was his first name.
And the socialist Jews of the Workmen's Circle looked down on normal Religious,
Zionist Jews like my family, who continue to use 2 given names in Hebrew and in English.

Workmen's Circle [Arbeiter Ring in Yiddish], was a Yiddish-speaking,
Jewish Socialist organisation active in the USA & Canada, as well as
Eastern Europe from the late 1890 still the 1970s.
It still exists, but is almost defunct.

Either Jews got smart and became Zionist, [the organisation was anti-Zionist,
anti-Religious and anti-Hebrew language], or went far Left, like the morons who
support the Squad and such self-hating Jewish organisations as J-Street,
Jews for Justice in Palestine [sic], etc.

If you google "Conference of Major Jewish Organisations in USA",
I'd lay odds you'll still find Workmen's Circle among them; for the 5,000 Jews
who still support the organisation!
 
Best,
Joey

[bambooforrest]

Joey, thanks for the historical and cultural lesson. They are probably the same person....John

[Joey]

What importance it has for a study of Chinese snuff bottles, I'm not sure.
But what the heck...
Best,
Joey

[bambooforrest]

Every now and then I find something I have never seen before. This smoky quartz pebble has a carved amethyst inclusion next to a carved quartz inclusion [51mm]. I have never seen an amethyst inclusion on a smoky quartz bottle.

[richy88]

Hi John

Very interesting bottle!

Thanks for sharing.

Regards.


Richard

[Joey]

It is very interesting.
Best,
Joey

[bambooforrest]

I just took this bottle out of the Gump's box that probably held it for many years. Smoky quartz [53mm] carved on both sides with the "iron brush" technique. Maybe Richard can help with the translation.