A ‘Realgar' glass snuff bottle, Qing dynasty, late 17th-mid-18th century. Photo Sotheby's

the opaque, variegated scarlet, yellow, and green glass with extensive surface crizzling, with a flat lip and a recessed, slightly convex foot surrounded by a protruding flat footrim; the jadeite stopper with a glass stopper; 7.4 cm., 3 in. Estimation 20,000 — 30,000. Lot. Vendu 56,250 HKD

PROVENANCE : Collection of Arthur Gadsby.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 2nd May 1991, lot 41. 

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. 705. 

NOTE : Some realgar-glass is streaked with green, a colour added to the mixture and possibly derived from copper. However, the green typified here is a product of decomposition of the surface regardless of the extent to which there may have been green colouring in the original glass mix. This bottle may also have been buried at some time.  

Although of a less-standard form, the vertical lines of paler colour up the narrow sides prove that this was blown into a mould. A yellow glass bottle similarly severely degraded at the surface, with a Qianlong reign mark, is to be found in the Rietberg Museum, Chinese Snuff Bottles. Masterpieces from the Rietberg Museum Zurich, Rietberg Museum Zurich, 1993, cat. no. 23.

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