An emerald-green aventurine-glass snuff bottle, Qing dynasty, Qianlong-early Jiaqing period. Photo Sotheby's

of transparent, bluish emerald-green glass with a few scattered air bubbles, and with surface inclusions of aventurine-glass with a flat lip and a concave foot, the foot inscribed in seal script Xuegutang (‘Hall for the Study of Antiquity’) filled with red pigment; the tourmaline stopper with a gilt-silver collar; 4.9 cm., 1 7/8  in. Estimation 60,000-80,000 HKD. Lot vendu: 200,000 HKD

PROVENANCE: Robert Kleiner, London, 1999.

LITTERATURE: Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 5, Hong Kong, 2002, no. 754.

NOTE: The foot bears the studio name ‘Hall for the Study of Antiquity’ in confidently-inscribed seal script. There were several places in China with this name, but this is an imperial type of bottle, made to the standards of the court glassworks and inscribed in the same manner as palace reign marks, so this bottle is obviously associated with the Hall for the Study of Antiquity in the Jingyi yuan (now Xiangshan Park) near Beijing. The Jingyi yuan underwent major
development as a secondary palace starting in 1745, and the Hall for the Study of Antiquity was probably built sometime in the next decade or so, because the Qianlong emperor wrote twenty-three poems on the hall between 1759 and 1795.

Sotheby's. Snuff Bottles from the Mary and George Bloch Collection: Part VI. Hong Kong | 27 mai 2013 www.sothebys.com