of baluster form, carved through the blue layer to the opaque milky-white ground with a continuous scene of butterflies hovering around large peony blossoms borne on branches growing from behind a rock, the base incised with four-character wheel-cut mark, stopper (2). Height 2 1/8  in., 5.5 cm

Provenance: Eugene Sung, New York, 1974..

Property from the collection of Robert and Maurine Muntz

Notes: The present lot belongs to a group of carved overlay glass snuff bottles attributed to the Imperial glassworks, Beijing, believed to have been produced during the second half of the Qianlong period. A number of similar bottles are preserved in the Qing court collections in both Palace Museums. See a very similar example in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, exhibited in Lifting the Spirit and Body: The Art and Culture of Snuff Bottles, Taipei, 2012, cat. no. II-063, and another preserved in Beijing, illustrated in Snuff Bottles. The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2003, pl. 33. Similar Qianlong mark and period bottles from The Mary and George Bloch Collection have sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 24th November 2014, lot 160 and 26th May 2014, lot 1051.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 13 sept. 2016, 10:30 AM