An Overview of Qing Glass Snuff-Bottle Production
By Hugh M. Moss
Editor’s Note: Kindly reproduced with permission from the author and from the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, who originally published this article in the spring volume of the ICSBS Journal, 2004. A link to the Society website can be found here.
This essay is an expanded version of a lecture presented to the International Snuff Bottle Society in Houston in October 2001, by Hugh Moss, derived from the research undertaken for the fifth volume of the Bloch Collection (Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 5, Glass), where the reader will find a great deal more information on the subject.
Introduction
The early history of the snuff bottle is currently obscured by the controversy over a group of bottles signed with the name Cheng Rongzhang and dated to the years 1644 to 1653 of the Shunzhi reign. They seem equally unlikely whether one accepts them as genuine or as the works of a singularly imaginative late-Qing forger. The jury has not yet returned a verdict in this intriguing case so, for the time being, we will set them aside and see how the overall picture looks without them.
The earliest firm evidence so far of the use of either snuff or snuff bottles is from the latter part of the Kangxi period. In 1684 while visiting Nanjing on a southern tour, the Kangxi Emperor was presented with various gifts from the missionaries Gabiani and Valat. Among them was imported snuff. The Emperor returned all the other gifts but kept the snuff. Born in May 1654, he ascended the throne in 1662, not yet ten years old. By 1684, about to enter his thirties, the Emperor was probably already addicted to snuff. If we exclude the Shunzhi bronze bottles from consideration, there is no firm historical evidence of the existence of snuff bottles at so early a date, but it would be sensible to assume that if snuff was already fashionable at court by the early 1680s, it was already being kept in small, bespoke containers.
The earliest reference to a snuff bottle is from a work published in 1702, referring to the writer’s experience at court immediately prior to that date. The writer was Wang Shizhen, a high-ranking minister under the Kangxi Emperor and probably the most famous poet and literary critic of his day (1) Parts of the passage on snuff and snuff bottles have been published in many sources over the past few decades, with slight variations in translation, and it is worth quoting in full here since not only is it our earliest reference to snuff bottles, it provides, for so short a passage, a wealth of useful information. Wang wrote:
Recently in the capital snuff has been produced. It is said to be able to improve one’s sight, especially to exorcise epidemic diseases. The snuff is put into glass bottles, which are of varying shapes, in colors of red, purple, yellow, white, black, green and brown. The white is as clear as crystal, the red like fire. What lovely
things they are! The spoon is made of ivory, used to extract the snuff out of the bottle to be inhaled, and then put back into the bottle. The snuff bottles are manufactured by the Imperial court. Snuff bottles are also imitated among the people but are far inferior in quality and design.
Here, in one brief account, we are informed that snuff was being produced at the capital; of its supposed medicinal benefits; that glass bottles were a standard container at the time, with a range of colors being produced; that the ivory spoon was standard from very early in the development of the art form; and that although snuff-bottle manufacture was Imperial, the common people were also beginning to see the potential for exotic containers for the new and highly addictive substance.
The reference to snuff being produced in the capital may refer only to the process of blending snuff produced elsewhere, but it may also indicate that tobacco leaves were imported and the snuff was actually manufactured at the capital and, therefore, for the court.
That Imperial glass bottles were made to contain the snuff is unambiguous here, but it need not follow that no other materials were used. Imperial glass is highly unlikely to have pre-dated 1696 when the glassworks was first set up and yet, if the Emperor was already interested in snuff in 1684, we may assume the production of small bottles to contain it. Certainly the large glass storage jars in which it was imported would not have been at all convenient for every-day usage (fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Large glass storage jar where imported snuff was stored.
Hinted at in this early source is a fact which is confirmed by many later sources: the habit of snuffing was centered at court, and the ruling elite of Manchus and their Chinese civil servants played the major role in its early evolution. As late as 1774, the European missionary, Amiot, noted that snuff taking was a habit more or less restricted to Beijing. Elsewhere Amiot proves himself to be a somewhat unreliable observer, but this seems to have been generally true of the early Qing period even if, by the time of Amiot’s letter, the habit had begun to spread further afield than he suggests. Whatever the history of the snuff bottle prior to the establishment of the Imperial glassworks at Beijing in 1896, and whatever fate the jury has in store for the Shunzhi bronze bottles, we can be certain of the important role glass played in the evolution of the snuff bottle from the 1690s onwards.
I have spent the last two years focused on Qing glass for the fifth volume of the Bloch catalogue (2) What follows is a brief overview of Qing glass snuff-bottle production. “Blochbuster Five,” as it has become affectionately known, covers nearly four hundred glass snuff bottles, the history of later Chinese glass in general, and all published primary sources touching upon the subject that I have been able to find, set out in chronological order. This research has allowed me to examine the important role glass played in the evolution of the snuff bottle by approaching the subject from a chronological point of view.
Few glass snuff bottles can be precisely dated, and far fewer still can be related to specific records
in the Imperial archives. However, we can identify the general types produced at certain times interspersed with those rare and valuable landmarks where we can either date or place production with reasonable precision. In most cases, and especially with undecorated bottles, while we can be reasonably certain of a specific type being made at a certain time, we cannot be sure that the particular bottle illustrated is necessarily of that period. While we are as yet unable to identify with any certainty a single Imperial yellow glass bottle from the Kangxi period, Wang Shizhen’s publication proves that it was a color produced by 1702.
Thanks to recent research by Emily Byrne Curtis and Yang Boda we know that the Imperial glassworks was set up at Canchikou, near the Xi’an Gate in the year 1696. There is some ambiguity over when precisely this new glassworks began producing wares, but it appears that at least some glasswares were being produced by the end of that year. I refer throughout to the “Imperial glassworks” rather than the “Palace glassworks” only because while it was situated within the Imperial City, it was outside the Palace itself, or the Forbidden City, unlike other Palace Workshops.
The role the European missionaries played in the establishment and ongoing glory of the glassworks is well established by Curtis and Yang and need no longer be debated. The glassworks was situated on a plot of land granted to the Jesuits in 1693 by the Kangxi Emperor in thanks for having cured him of malaria (3) and was under the directorship of Kilian Stumpf from its inception probably until his death in 1720. Other European missionaries were involved and some European laymen, and their involvement continued until shortly before
1760, by which time only Chinese glassmakers remained. While the influence of the Missionaries is undoubted, so are the skills of the Chinese working alongside them in the early years. Co-opted from Guangzhou or Boshan, two established glassmaking centers, the numbers of these Chinese glassworkers grew steadily from 1696 into the early Qianlong period. Very shortly after the glassworks was set up, skilled Chinese workers seem to have outnumbered their European counterparts, but there were obviously certain difficult technical skills they may have lacked. In 1770, the Qianlong Emperor asked if two chandeliers designed and produced as scale models could be made, and received the reply: “Barely.” They were, in fact, made but inadequate workmanship prompted the Emperor to reduce the agreed fee. Yang Boda concludes that standards had fallen because the missionaries were no longer involved. (4)
An important point needs to be made at this stage, which is crucial to our understanding of mid-Qing glass production. A clear picture of the development of Qing glassmaking has, I believe, been greatly obscured by a failure to separate the evidence pertaining to glassmaking from that related to glass decorating. On the broad range of carved glass, the two are entirely separate and it is possible for the former to be in decline while the latter flourishes. Yang Boda proposed that Qing glassmaking reached its peak for a brief period in the Qianlong reign, building on the steady progress of the Kangxi and Yongzheng reigns (5) Once the Jesuits were no longer involved, he suggests that glassmaking began to decline. This is an influential opinion and has become the standard interpretation. It is true, however, only of the glassmaking technology—what happens in the way of carving thereafter has nothing to do with glassmaking technology. Surface decoration represents the skills of the lapidary or diamond-point engraver, skills that flourished at a high level long after the decline in glassmaking technology set in. We tend to judge a carved, cameo overlay glass vessel for its quality of carving rather than for the relatively simple level of glass technology it represents and may be in danger of confusing a high quality of lapidary skills with a high level of glass technology. What is clear from a study of the Bloch glass bottles is that while glass technology and the skills to produce certain massive and complex forms declined during the mid-Qianlong reign, this had no affect whatsoever on snuff bottles. The glass technology involved in the production of the vast majority of snuff bottles was such that Chinese workers could continue to produce them to the highest standards long after the departure of the last Jesuit glassmaker and the decline in glassmaking skills that Yang Boda associates with the loss of their assistance. Highly skilled lapidaries remained at the court carving both glass and hardstones well into the Daoguang period.
While making exclamatory comments, it is worth mentioning one other drawback of past glass scholarship. Most scholars have ignored the evidence of snuff bottles. The records suggest that snuff bottles constituted the greater part of overall production at the court between 1696 and the mid-nineteenth century, a ratio confirmed by the fact that today there are far more snuff bottles known than all other wares put together. Snuff bottles are also more frequently signed and dated than other forms, often spectacularly illuminating the broader picture. Glass researchers ignore snuff bottles at their peril.
1696–1735
Reign-marked Kangxi glass is extremely rare, although it is evident that an enormous quantity of glass was produced at the Imperial glassworks in the twenty-six years between late 1696 and 1722. It may be that a great deal of the earlier part of this production was of rather
European style and did not, therefore, attract the typical Chinese reign mark. It is also likely that part of the capacity of the glassworks would have been taken up by the manufacture of either architectural, or optical glass. One of the reasons for establishing a glassworks at court was to produce a wide range of optical devices, another was to provide the rapidly expanding,
early Qing court with such articles as chandeliers, which could be enormous projects (the two that displeased the Emperor in 1770 took nine months to complete and incorporated five hundred and twelve fluted glass rods).
One of the very few known Kangxi marked glass objects is, fortunately for us, a snuff bottle (fig. 2).
Fig. 2. Blue glass bottle with raised circular panel on each side, two-character Kangxi mark on the base.
Of simple form, with a raised circular panel on each side (possibly intended to act as integral snuff dishes), it has a very rare two- character Kangxi mark giving just the reign title. Although this is not a common form, it is not unknown and a range of Kangxi and Yongzheng arts produced at the Imperial Workshops reveal wide experimentation with forms and colors of reign marks. While it is possible as an early example from the glassworks with this two- character mark, any later glass forger would almost certainly have been ignorant of the possibility and used a standard four-character mark and, probably, Kangxi yuzhi [By Imperial Command of the Kangxi Emperor]. In any case, the possibility of it being a later forgery seems precluded by the diamond-point engraving, which was introduced as an art by the Jesuits to the Imperial glassworks at their inception, by the style of engraving, and by the state of the transparent sapphire-blue glass, which is both crizzled and degraded. Crizzling was standard for early glass of this color, occurring in all pieces currently attributed to the Kangxi period and many from the Yongzheng reign, but here may have been aggravated by subsequent burial. This likelihood probably accounts for its survival. Many snuff bottles were buried with their owners. Recent excavations in China to expand cities and build high-rises to replace compounds of private housing have turned up a good many snuff bottles, particularly in glass, where the degradation of the surface and iridescence from long contact with damp make them distinctive.
It need not, of course, have been buried in the Kangxi period. It could have survived generations above ground before accompanying its then owner to the afterlife although not, as he probably hoped, for eternity in this particular case.
Another bottle from the Bloch Collection, also in sapphire-blue glass is not marked, but can be dated to the first phase of Imperial glass production (fig. 3).
Fig. 3. Sapphire-blue glass bottle carved with a circular panel on each side, 1696–1730. Bloch Collection.
It is of very similar form, but in place of engraved decoration are four raised beads defining panels and, on the two main sides, acting as integral snuff dishes as well. Here the crizzling seems entirely due to the chemical imbalance of the ingredients, the usual problem inherited from Europe at the time, rather than from burial. The surface is crizzled but has none of the characteristic iridescence or surface weathering typical of buried glass. Both seem to suggest that a standard form for early Palace snuff bottles, although many others existed, was a compressed sphere, with panels that could also act as snuff dishes if required. On the Kangxi-marked example, although the narrow-side panels are not raised, they are suggested by the use of oval designs. Other bottles exist that can be reasonably dated to the earlier phase of glassmaking from the inception of the Imperial glassworks into the Yongzheng period, even if we cannot always completely rule out manufacture at a slightly later time. There is a colorless glass bottle of the type known, somewhat confusingly, as “crystal” which has extensive crizzling (fig. 4).
Fig. 4. Colorless glass bottle with extensive crizzling, early phase production.
This sort of lead glass excited Chinese attention in the early Qing period because of its clarity and capacity for holding hot liquids. It was much emulated in China and with the need for crystal- clear lenses at the court was certainly produced there in the early years. Another colorless glass bottle which is even more likely to date from the Kangxi period has extensive interior and exterior crizzling typical of Kangxi transparent glass and is unquestionably the result of the so-called “glass disease” arising from an unbalanced recipe (fig. 5).
Fig. 5. Transparent glass bottle with “glass disease” crizzling.
Faceting was another glass- decorating technique introduced by Stumpf and his contemporaries in the dying years of the seventeenth century. It became a popular court decorative technique, and not only for glass, but must have begun in the Kangxi period, and a bottle such as figure 6 might be so early. Another obvious candidate is a colorless glass double-gourd shaped bottle which is not only diamond-point engraved but seems to suggest the hand of a European engraver (fig. 7).
Fig. 6. Red-faceted glass bottle, 1700–1750. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 7. Diamond-point engraved colorless glass bottle with bands of joined fylfots, 1696–1730. Bloch Collection.
It would be unusual for a Chinese artist to use two bands of what is essentially a border pattern to fill the main decorative area of the upper bulb. The floral band of the lower bulb is also distinctly un-Chinese in style. In place of the elegant, flowing, continuous formalized floral scroll the Chinese had been producing for a thousand years, there appears a disjointed design where the elements of the floral scroll keep getting lost beyond the frame. This appears to be by a European hand, possibly even that of Stumpf who is recorded as having mastered the arts of producing the glass, manipulating it on the blow-iron and carving it.
What of the other colors Wang Shizhen informs us were being made prior to 1702? Red, purple, yellow, white, black, green and brown are all specified. We know that ruby glass was produced as a staple at court, made to a recipe introduced from Europe, and this may be the red—although the description “red like fire” raises the intriguing alternative that he might have been referring to realgar glass, which often looks remarkably like fire. However, we will go with the usual interpretation and assume he refers to ruby-red glass. It seems likely that this color, the result of a tiny amount of colloidal gold in the mixture, was a fairly closely guarded court secret for some time after its introduction. It was, apparently, not produced at Boshan, for instance, until the early nineteenth century, despite the regular comings and goings of Fig. 5. Transparent glass bottle with “glass disease” crizzling.
Boshan workers to the Imperial glassworks. It seems likely that both private Beijing glassworks and that of Li Junting, attributed to Yangzhou, were able to produce it by the latter part of the Qianlong period, but it may have been a court monopoly for some years, possibly even some decades after 1696. It also seems likely that the court produced fairly large numbers of these red glass bottles during the first half of the Qing period. As to which are the Kangxi examples in red and, indeed, in purple, yellow, white, black, green and brown, we can only guess. A useful guide, however, is that we would expect crizzling in the gem-like colors if transparent. This might include purple, emerald- green and amber-brown, and certainly includes sapphire-blue, which we know to be a color produced in the Kangxi period although, strangely, Wang does not mention it, unless it is his “purple.” The yellow, white and black may have escaped crizzling because of their coloring ingredients, as does white, unless of a relatively transparent, milky color. It is possible that such a bottle as figure 8 with its faceting could be as early as the Kangxi period, although a Yongzheng, or early Qianlong date is equally likely.
Fig. 8. Translucent faceted yellow glass bottle, 1700–1760. Bloch Collection.
One type of glass we can confidently attribute to the Kangxi period, and to the Imperial glassworks, is sapphire-blue splashed with aventurine glass. This appears in the records for 1705 when the governor of Suzhou, Song Luo, received a gift of seventeen pieces of glass from the Emperor. This included wares in three monochrome colors, white, yellow and blue, as well as blue glass flecked with gold (6).
Figure 9 illustrates the type, which consists of fragments of imported aventurine glass rolled onto the surface of a transparent sapphire-blue glass made at the court. Aventurine glass fascinated the Chinese from very early in the Qing glass renaissance and the Palace glassmakers struggled to produce it themselves to avoid having to import it from Venice at considerable cost. Since it seems that it was difficult to re-melt successfully and blow into vessels, the earlier use of the material was to either carve it as if it were a hardstone, or break it into cold fragments and roll them into he surface of other colors of glass, initially sapphire blue. Whether or not the bottle in figure 9 is a Kangxi example is not so certain, but it is certainly early and represents the type.
Fig. 9. Sapphire-blue glass bottle splashed with aventurine glass, 1700–1760 Bloch Collection.
There must be other Kangxi plain glass bottles in our collections which remain unidentified, but two factors suggest they will not be plentiful: the much smaller number of bottles originally produced, and the attrition of time. The number of bottles produced annually for the court in the Qianlong period was far higher than that of the Kangxi period. There was a steady increase in demand from the mid-Kangxi period to the late eighteenth century, which began to level off during the first half of the nineteenth century but did not begin to decline until the second half. Part of this demand was fuelled by extensive collecting which became more and more fashionable among the elite as the eighteenth century progressed. From the records for 1725 we learn that only sixty-two glass snuff bottles were ordered at court for the entire year (7). If this was a typical year, it would mean a little over seven-hundred bottles for the whole Yongzheng reign, whereas the Qianlong Emperor ordered five hundred in one go for distribution as gifts at just one of his palaces (Chengde), on one occasion in 1755 (8). There were many other orders in the same year. The second factor is time, which works against the long-term survival of all fragile objects. If we assume the risk of destruction or loss per decade to be reasonably constant and then compare a bottle from the first decade of the 1700s and one from the first decade of the 1800s, today the earlier bottle is fifty percent more likely to have succumbed to damage. These two factors alone suggest we should not expect to find any great quantity of Kangxi glass snuff bottles.
The Kangxi archives of the Zaobanchu or Palace Workshops (which included the glassworks) are missing from Beijing, where the majority of research has been done into archival material over the past decade or two. Some if not all may be in Taipei, since snippets have appeared from these earlier records only from scholars with some connection to the National Palace Museum. In glass, therefore, there is very little published archival material prior to 1723. From the Yongzheng period onwards we can read brief descriptions of types of glass snuff bottles and other objects produced at the court, but as yet we are afforded no such luxury from the Kangxi period. This obscures the history of the early development of the artform and leaves open the question of when carved and cameo overlay glass first appears.
The earliest published reference to cameo overlay carvings is from early in 1726 when a pair of “overlay blue chi tiger snuff bottles were completed for the Emperor.” (9) I suspect that a chi tiger is probably the same as a chi dragon since they appear to frequently on early glass snuff bottles and there is nothing that might be interpreted as a tiger. Glass was certainly carved during the Kangxi period and it is very likely that cameo overlays were produced during the latter part of the reign. If they were already making the standard blue overlay chi dragon overlays less than three years into the Yongzheng reign, it is likely that it was an art form inherited from the Kangxi period. Quite apart from this, however, the tradition of glassmaking in China going back to the Han dynasty was to carve or cast glass; blowing appears to have been the exception until the Qing dynasty.
With the tradition of carving hardstones to make use of their different colors, including the skin of pebbles, lapidaries would immediately have been inspired to use different colors of glass to produce cameos. We know that cased or overlay glass was produced as early as the first month of 1708 from the record of a set of twelve cups made by Cheng Xianggui, a glassmaker co- opted to the Imperial glassworks from Guangdong province (10). These were recorded as both overlay, or cased glass, and as being carved, leading to their acceptance among some experts as evidence of early cameo overlay. While I accept the likelihood of early cameo overlays, I do not think these cups were of that type of carving.
A great deal of uncarved Chinese glass is made up of different colored layers known as uncarved overlay (sutao). These could then be left plain, engraved just on the upper surface, or carved through to create cameos. Cheng’s cups were decorated, I believe, with an engraved surface design, a common enough type of early eighteenth-century cup. But regardless of that, these cups prove the existence of overlay, whether carved or not, by 1708, and once the relatively simple art of laying one color of glass over another was mastered, carving them through to reveal the lower level and create a cameo overlay would have been so obvious to the Chinese lapidary that it would probably have happened almost immediately.
Figure 10 might be a carved monochrome from the late Kangxi period. Wang Shizhen does not tell us what color green was made at the Imperial glassworks, but there were probably various different greens produced, of which this may be one. Again, it seems to have been buried, to judge from the degraded surface, which might give it the impression of greater age than it has, but it could be from the Kangxi reign. A still stronger candidate is the magnificent realgar glass bottle from the Bloch Collection which is a cameo overlay, although a subtle one (fig. 11). This is exactly what one might expect of a very early overlay, where a random-colored surface is used like a jade pebble covered in dark skin. The chi dragon decoration on both this and the last would also suggest a courtly origin, since this was one of the most popular of all designs on Imperial snuff bottles from the Qing dynasty.
Fig. 10 Buried green cameo overlay bottle.
Fig. 11. Cameo overlay realgar glass carved with two chi dragons, 1700–1740. Bloch Collection.
Realgar glass was unquestionably one of the earlier colors of glass produced. There are various pieces of realgar glass in the Sloan Bequest to the British Museum, given in 1753, although collected earlier, (11) and there is a set of ten realgar glass cups in Denmark, which were purchased in Guangzhou and brought back to Europe on the “Kronprins Christian” in 1732 (12) It was also certainly produced at the Imperial Workshops. There remains in the Imperial Collection in Beijing realgar glass bearing the Yongzheng reign mark (13) Also in favor of this bottle being very early are the crystalline degradation of the green coloring of the surface and the style of the chi dragons, which are as powerful and individual as any known on a snuff bottle and typical of the early eighteenth century.
Choosing very early candidates for the more common range of brightly contrasting cameo overlays is more difficult, and it may be that these were not developed until the last years of the reign and that surviving examples are extremely rare. There is nothing known which could be attributed to the Kangxi over, say, the Yongzheng period with any certainty, but there are some possibilities. Figure 12, with its small size, elegantly realistic carving, and known early colors could be from the late Kangxi period. It is one of a small group more likely to date from a little later, perhaps, but they may have first been produced prior to 1722. There is also a group of deeply carved, dark ruby-red overlay bottles represented by figure 13, which are early, and might, again, just qualify, although they may be as late as the 1750s.
Fig. 12. Ruby-red overlay on translucent white glass carved with a continuous design on each side of two bats and three peaches on branches, 1710–1760. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 13. Deep ruby-red overlay on milky glass ground carved with archaistic fenghuang and four chi dragons, 1720–1780. Bloch Collection.
1715–1750
Once we extend our dating range somewhat to allow for a period stretching from the late Kangxi to
the early Qianlong, say from 1715–1750, we have much more to choose from, the Imperial records to guide us, some reign-marked pieces and, for the snuff-bottle enthusiast, one other exciting piece of evidence (fig. 14). In the Imperial Collection in Beijing there is a magnificent set of twelve paintings of the Yongzheng Emperor’s concubines (14) Depicting interior settings, the paintings are replete with works of art painted in an unusually realistic manner. In one, a lady sits reading a book with what can only be a ruby-red glass snuff bottle at her elbow (fig. 14), complete with a gilt-bronze stopper of typically Palace style—a type we know, from the records, was fitted with such stoppers (15). It is of rounded rectangular form with a simple raised panel on each of the four sides. I can find no red glass bottle of precisely this shape, but a very similar ruby glass bottle in conception exists which appears to be early and is probably from this sort of period (fig. 15).
Fig. 14. Painting from the series “Yongzheng Emperor’s Concubines.” Imperial Collection, Beijing.
Fig. 15. Ruby red glass bottle with a circular raised flat panel on each side, 1720–1770. Bloch Collection.
It also has a simple raised panel on each main side. As we have seen, ruby-red glass was a staple at court and may not have been produced elsewhere at this early stage of production. The simple faceting may derive in part from European decorative methods but here it also derives from the circular panels of courtly decoration, which are commonly found, for instance, on Kangxi enamel-painted metal bottles. Although the idea of simple raised panels may have been encouraged by the new faceting techniques, it is unlikely that bottles such as this would have been considered European looking at the time.
There are one or two glass snuff bottles bearing credible Yongzheng reign marks. Figure 16 is in ruby-red glass and of the typical, faceted shape that remained popular throughout the dynasty, although evolving formally. This example shows that it was already refined to this standard shape by the Yongzheng reign. It is an interesting feature of this bottle that the red is rather flawed, with streaking and bubbles of various sizes, which is also a feature of other wares with Yongzheng reign marks in this color. This need not mean, however, that all Yongzheng glass was similarly flawed. Another of the same shape is in purple glass, a color we know from the records was made at court during the reign (fig. 17). It also bears a Yongzheng reign mark. Although I have not been able to examine it, it is likely to be genuine. Based on these two, we can attribute other, non-marked glass bottles of the same formal range, many with similarly wide mouths, to the same sort of period.
Fig. 16. Ruby-red faceted glass bottle, the base marked in regular script Yongzheng nianzhi [Made during the Yongzheng period], 1723–1735. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 17. Purple faceted glass bottle.
Figure 18 is in Imperial yellow glass, a color we know was made prior to 1702 from Wang Shizhen’ description. Figure 19 is of a particular shade of turquoise-green that is known in a number of vessels other than snuff bottles with Yongzheng or Qianlong marks. The Yongzheng Emperor is on record in 1732 (sixth month, twentieth day) as being dissatisfied with the color of one turquoise glass snuff bottle, ordering it broken and recycled (16). Figure 20 is of orange realgar glass with the rather even coloring apparently popular at court during the Yongzheng and early Qianlong period, while figure 21 is a very rare example in sapphire-blue with aventurine glass fragments rolled into the surface proving, incidentally, that this particular bottle, unlike figure 20, was blown into an already faceted mold.
Fig. 18. Imperial yellow faceted glass bottle, 1700–1770. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 20. Orange realgar faceted glass bottle, 1700–1770. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 21. Rare blown sapphire-blue faceted glass bottle with aventurine glass fragments, 1720–1760. Bloch Collection.
We can also attribute other plain bottles to the same broad period spanning the Yongzheng reign, despite a lack of marks. Figure 22 is of the right color for the early- eighteenth century. It has a wide mouth like many early glass bottles and is of the same conception as figure 3, the sapphire-blue glass bottle we have attributed to the late Kangxi period. It too has integral snuff dishes with raised, beaded frames.
More excitingly, there is one bottle that we can link tentatively to the Yongzheng records. In 1725 (eleventh month, twenty-eighth day), the Emperor commanded the eunuch Zhang Jingxi to have copies made in various different colors of a grape- colored octagonal glass snuff bottle (17). Grape-colored probably refers to purple, and in the Crane Collection there is a magnificent example, complete with its original glass stopper, which fits the description very well (fig. 23). It is more purple in the flesh than in the illustration though, admittedly, a rather bluish purple. A remarkably similar bottle in another color, perhaps one of those ordered as a copy, is in the J & J Collection (fig. 24). Interestingly it has a contrasting, but apparently still original stopper. On the transparent purple of the first example, a matching stopper works better than it would on the translucent green glass, where a coral-colored contrast is more telling.
Fig. 22. Turquoise-green glass bottle carved with framed circular panel on each side, 1710–1760. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 23. Bluish-purple octagonal glass bottle. Crane Collection.
Fig. 24. Spinach green glass carved with eight vertical facets, 1723–1770. J & J Collection.
Earlier in the Yongzheng period, in 1723 (first month, ninth day) the Emperor sent to the glassworks via Prince Yi (Yinxiang) an aventurine (“gold-star”), and a five color glass snuff bottle, with an order to copy them several times, resulting in an order for a total of one hundred and twenty-six various colored glass snuff bottles (18). The reference seems to refer to two separate bottles, but it is just possible that a single “aventurine, and five-color glass bottles” was intended. The reference to a five-color glass bottle is intriguing. Elsewhere in the records a similar term is used to describe several objects in five different colors, but here, whether the reference is to one or two different bottles, it seems to be a single bottle with five colors involved. It seems unlikely that five-color cameo overlays would have evolved by the first year of the Yongzheng period, although not impossible, and I suspect this refers to glass bottles with various colors swirled or splashed together, which we come across below. If there is only one bottle involved, then it is with five colors and aventurine “splashes.” Otherwise, the aventurine glass bottle may have been carved from a solid block since the evidence suggests that the Chinese could not make aventurine glass at this early date. Although possibly made after 1750, there is one such bottle in the Bloch Collection, which could be from the early Qianlong period (fig. 25).
Fig. 25. Aventurine glass bottle.
Bloch Collection.
From 1726 (second month, tenth day) comes the first mention of a cameo overlay glass snuff bottle, which we have already discussed. If the pair of snuff bottles with chi tiger decoration was, as I suspect, decorated with chi dragons, then we have an ideal candidate in figure 26. This could even pre-date the Yongzheng period, since the colorless ground is crizzled and the carving style is early, but in any case is not likely to be much later.
Fig. 26. Blue overlay on colorless ground carved with a chi dragon on each side, 1710–1750. Bloch Collection.
There are many other specific records of Imperial glass snuff bottles during the Yongzheng period which are covered fully in the Bloch glass volume, among which are a number of grape-colored bottles and others in red, presumably ruby-red, but in 1727 (third month, thirteenth day) there is mention of a five color threaded glass snuff bottle, and two monochrome yellow glass snuff bottles, with instructions to give them to the glass factory (bolichang) to make similar pieces (19). Threaded glass may refer to anything with threads of a different color stretched into a transparent matrix, one variety of which is figure 27, which might be from the period we are dealing with, although it is shown here more as an example of the type than necessarily of the period. Any number of colors can be swirled in this manner, although there are usually fewer than five.
Fig. 27. Swirled or threaded jasper-like glass bottle, 1730–1840. Bloch Collection.
There is a tantalizing record from 1727 (extra third intercalary month, third day) with an admonition from the Emperor, transmitted by Director Hai Wang: “I look at the products of the Zaobanchu. Before there were fewer good pieces, but they were in Imperial style (neiting gongzao). Although the recent works are exquisite, they are not of Imperial style, and look like they are foreign- made. When you are making pieces in the future, do not lose the style of the Inner Court (neiting).” (20) We have no way of knowing precisely what the Emperor meant by “foreign-made,” but we may assume that from 1727 until his death in 1735, the Emperor would not have been ordering overtly European styles. His successor immediately, and blatantly, reversed the trend by not only showing his enthusiasm for European style but for European content as well, with a series of well documented European subjects painted at the court in enamels on glass, metal and porcelain during the first decade of the reign. The admonition may be of little real value in dating at present, but it is, nonetheless, one of the growing number of clues which will allow us, eventually, to date snuff bottles far more accurately.
Figures 28 and 29 are of a distinctive color of glass which may well be the color described in 1727 (seventh month, twentieth day) when reference is made to a “newly made transparent-yellow glass, very much like honey-amber.” (21) The second of these bottles is decorated with a mallow flower, a symbol of loyalty to the Emperor which frequently occurred on palace arts, presumably on gifts to officials (which were plentiful throughout the period) to inspire them to serve the Emperor well. The mallow, like the sunflower follows the path of the sun, which in Chinese cosmology, represents the Emperor, hence the loyalty symbolism. The combination of yellow, the Imperial color, and this design, together with the sort of high- quality carving and perfection of detailing and finish which was typical of early-eighteenth century court carving, allows a reasonable attribution to the Imperial glassworks although, of course, the carving would have been done in the lapidary workshops (officially known as the “Gold and jade workshops”), not in the glassworks itself, which had attached only a grinding and polishing workshop.
Fig. 28. Transparent golden-yellow glass bottle, 1720–1830. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 29. Transparent golden-yellow glass bottle decorated with a mallow flower on each side, 1725–1790. Bloch Collection.
Figure 30 represents another type, which we know is from this early period. It is of a distinctive form, with faceted sides based on highly stylized bamboo stalks, which represents a meeting of Chinese subject matter and Western faceting techniques. On each main side is a diamond-point engraved design of flowers, very similar in style to that on other wares datable to the Yongzheng or early Qianlong period.
Fig. 30. Ruby-red faceted glass bottle with engraved design of flowers, 1720–1745. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 31. Red overlay with peach design on colorless glass, 1715–1760. J & J Collection.
From the first year of the Qianlong period, in 1736, there is a record of the various types of glass made at the Imperial glassworks which includes vases and four snuff bottles in a variety of colors: bright red, red overlay on colorless glass, red overlay on opaque white, clear glass, red and yellow, green and olive (22). If red overlay on colorless glass was being made in the first year of Qianlong, we may assume it was an earlier development, and the well-known small peach bottle from the J & J Collection is a likely candidate for the period (fig. 31). It is very similar in feeling to figure 12 and part of the same early group. In this same year, the number of glass snuff bottles presented by the Zaobanchu, or Palace Workshops is changed, from one hundred to sixty at the Duanwu Festival, and to sixty at the Nianjie Festival (23). This was a custom instigated in 1724 by Prince Yi (Yinxiang) who was in charge of the Zaobanchu or Palace Workshops. In order to curry favor with his brother he issued an order instructing that from that day forward all the workshops were to produce some small handicraft work and present them in time for the Duanwuji [Dragon Boat Festival], Wanshoujie [Emperor’s birthday] and Nianjie [New Year Festival] (24).
In 1738 the Qianlong Emperor ordered the Imperial lapidary workshops to produce thirty-five snuff bottles, which, according to Xia Gengqi, took over two years to complete (25). They were presumably the more complicated cameo overlays, since it seems inconceivable that thirty-five plain glass bottles could take so long to make. In the same year fifty more snuff bottles were ordered, all to be fitted with gilt- bronze stoppers (26) From the Qianlong period there are many more records of the production of glass snuff bottles, all of which are included in the chronological list of primary sources, which accompanies the Bloch glass volume. Peter Lam sampled only a small fraction of the vast quantity of records for the Qianlong period, and just under a thousand snuff bottles are noted which, together with the five hundred we know were made in 1755, brings the number up to one thousand four hundred and fifty-five bottles (27) This is far from the total for the sixty-year reign. Only part of the records for only twenty-eight of the sixty-year reign were examined, so the eventual output will prove to be much higher.
At the beginning of the Qianlong reign two European missionaries skilled in glassmaking joined the court, Gabriel-Léonard de Brossard (Ji Wen, 1703–1758) and Pierre Noël Le Chéron d’Incarville (Tang Zhizhong, 1706–1757). Although de Bossard was probably the more skilled glassmaker, the two seem to have worked together on and off, and d’Incarville in his Catalogue Alphabétique (thought to have been completed by 1748 (28)) refers to his early, unsuccessful attempts to make aventurine glass. The most likely date of d’Incarville’s unsuccessful attempts is the early part of 1741. He arrived at Guangzhou only in October 1740, and would have had to journey to Beijing and settle in before receiving orders from the Emperor. The records show that he was successful in making aventurine glass at some time prior to the third month of 1741, and in the same year, the Emperor took advantage of what we may assume was the first successful local manufacture of aventurine glass by ordering sixteen snuff bottles to be made with gold splashes in black, green or blue glass; they took over three months to complete, giving us a more accurate account of how long a specific type of bottle took to produce (29). We are on much stronger ground in identifying the type of bottle made under this Imperial order. We have already seen an early gold-splashed blue glass bottle (fig. 9), and there are many others known, while figures 32–34 represent the rarer black ground version (although it should be said that the ground, while appearing black, seldom is, and is revealed as a very dark, translucent emerald-green or even reddish color with transmitted light). Figures 32 and 34 are both inscribed with a four-character Qianlong reign mark. A rare version with a bluish-green ground is known, although inscribed with a studio name rather than a reign mark (fig. 35), and figure 36 is a translucent turquoise-green glass with gold splashes, although other colors are also rolled onto the surface in this case. It is also reign marked (fig. 36), but in this case with a seal-script mark rather than the frequently found, wheel-cut, regular script mark. The black ground bottles can possibly be associated with the order of 1741, and help to identify another group of bottles as from the early Qianlong period, represented by figures 37 and 38. This helps to identify a range of shapes as being typical of the period, and there are quite a few known bottles of this form in ruby-red glass, sapphire-blue and Imperial yellow, to mention only a few of the possible colors.
Fig. 32. Dark green and deep ruby-red glass with inclusions of aventurine splotches, the foot inscribed in regular script, Qianlong nianzhi [Made during the Qianlong period], 1736–1770. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 33. Dark green glass bottle with aventurine inclusions, 1723–1780. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 34. Gold-splashed black ground glass bottle, the base with a four-character Qianlong mark.
Fig. 35. Gold splashes on a bluish-green ground glass bottle, the base marked in seal script, Xuegu tang [Hall for the Study of Antiquity], 1720–1780. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 36. Transparent turquoise-green glass bottle with gold splashes, 1720–1780.
Figs. 37. Plain bluish-green glass bottle and four-character Qianlong mark on the base.
Fig. 38. Brown and beige glass bottle with Qianlong mark on the base.
The records for 1745 suggest that I have been wrong about the date at which jadeite became popular and began to attract the same sort of attention as nephrite. I had suggested, from evidence presented in the J & J catalogue that this took place at some time during the last two decades of the eighteenth century (30). This seems in contradiction to the record for 1743 where, for the first time, “jadeite-green” occurs as a color for Imperial glass (31). It occurs frequently thereafter. If jadeite was being imitated in glass by 1743 it must, presumably, have been valued even if supplies may have been sporadic due to poor relations with Burma, the source of this stone for Qing China. Considering some of the evidence of official records and Jesuit correspondence, there may be a few other glass snuff bottles which might date from the earlier part of the Qianlong reign.
Among orders for glass snuff bottles in 1746 are eight to be given to the Dalai and Panchen Lamas.
A significant proportion of wares made in the Imperial glassworks were intended as gifts to courtiers, visiting dignitaries, vassal rulers and those of greater independence with whom good relations were considered important. The exchange of gifts at court was on a massive, partly institutionalized scale, and carried with it both social and political significance. Even gifts received as tribute by the Emperor were often re-distributed by the court as gifts to others (32).
In 1747 are recorded some interesting cameo overlay combinations, including red and green overlay on yellow, and red overlay on opaque blue. Also mentioned is a speckled opaque white (33). This last is the earliest reference so far recorded of what is probably the snowstorm ground of so many overlay glass snuff bottles from the Qianlong period (fig. 39, although this particular bottle is probably not from the early Qianlong reign). The series of octagonal-faceted forms, which we saw in figures 16–21 continued into the Qianlong period, and beyond, although the smaller range appears to be among the earlier ones, and the size seems to generally increase during the dynasty. Several Qianlong-marked examples are known among others from the Jiaqing and later reigns. A small, ruby-red bottle such as that in figure 40, however, which is close in size and similar in form to the palace-enameled version in the J & J Collection, and confidently dated to the first fifteen years of the Qianlong reign, is a likely candidate for an early Qianlong date (34). Figures 41 and 42, the latter with a Qianlong reign mark, are part of a group of exquisitely well carved Imperial yellow bottles decorated with archaistic designs which can be attributed to early in the reign, and figure 43 is also likely to be early.
It is colored with ruby red made from colloidal gold, still possibly a closely guarded court recipe at the time, and extensively crizzled on the inside. Figure 44 is an early blue overlay, of an unusual style and, again, exquisite carving, which might even be earlier than Qianlong.
Fig. 39. Red overlay glass bottle on a snowstorm ground carved to illustrate a vase and antiquities.
Fig. 40. Small ruby-red glass bottle carved with raised oval panels, 1736–1750.
Fig. 41. Imperial yellow bottle decorated with archaistic design, 1736–1770. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 42. Imperial yellow bottle decorated with archaistic design, Qianlong reign mark on the base.
Fig. 43. Crizzled pale ruby-red colorless glass bottle, 1710–1770. Bloch Collection.
Fig. 44. Blue overlay on semi-transparent milky glass ground with a continuous design of two kui dragons, 1710–1760. Bloch Collection.
Notes
1) Wang Shizhen (1634–1711), Xiangzu biji.
2) Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 5, Glass (Hong Kong: Herald International Ltd., 2000).
3) Emily Byrne Curtis, “Glass For K’ang Hsi’s Court,” Arts of Asia (September–October 1991).
4) Yang Boda, “A Brief Account of Qing Dynasty Glass,” in The Robert H. Clague Collection. Chinese Glass of the Qing Dynasty 1644–1911 (Phoenix Art Museum, 1987), 80.
5) Ibid., 79.
6) Ibid., 77.
7) Zhang Rong, “Imperial Glass of the Yongzheng Reign,” in Elegance and Radiance. Grandeur in Qing Glass. The K. F. Lee Collection (Hong Kong: The Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000), 64.
8) Yang Boda, op. cit., 79.
9) Zhang Rong, op. cit., 64 and 65.
10) Yang Boda, op. cit., 78.
11) For one of a pair of vases from the Sloane bequest, see JICSBS 30 (Summer 1998): 14, fig. 33; and for either the same one or its pair, R. Soame Jenyns, Chinese Art. The Minor Arts II, 145, no. 81.
12) Ethnographic Objects in The Royal Danish Kunstkammer 1650–1800 (Nationalmuseet), nos. Ebc 71–82, 218.
13) Yang Boda, op. cit., 78.
14) Court Painting of the Qing Dynasty (The Palace Museum, Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1992), no. 41.
15) In 1723 (first month, ninth day) there is a record of one hundred and twenty-six snuff bottles of various colors, all fitted with gilt stoppers and ivory spoons (Zhang Rong, op. cit., 65).
16) Zhang Weiyong, “The Imperial Workshops of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Boshan Glass Works,” in Elegance and Radiance. Grandeur in Qing Glass. The Andrew K. F. Lee Collection (Hong Kong: The Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000), 74.
17) Zhang Rong, op. cit., 64.
18) Ibid., 65.
19) Ibid., 64.
20) Ibid., 67.
21) Ibid., 66.
22) Peter Y. K. Lam, “The Glasshouse of the Qing Imperial Household Department,” in Elegance and Radiance. Grandeur in Qing Glass. The K. F. Lee Collection (Hong Kong: The Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000), 52, archive no. 3375.
23) Luan Jingli, ed., Masterpieces of Snuff Bottles in the Palace Museum (Beijing: The Forbidden City Publishing House of the Palace Museum, 1995), 25.
24) Ibid., 18.
25) Ibid., 29.
26) Peter Y. K. Lam, op. cit., 52, archive no. 3382.
27) Ibid., 52–59
28) Emily Byrne Curtis, “Notes on Qing Glassmaking: D’Incarville’s ‘Catalogue Alphabétique,’” Journal of Glass Studies 39 (Corning, New York: Corning Museum of Glass, 1997), 73.
29) Luan Jingli, ed., op. cit., 26.
30) Moss, Graham, Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle. The J & J Collection (New York: Weatherhill, 1993), 122–123.
31) Peter Y. K. Lam, op. cit., 52, archive no. 3402.
32) Ibid., 54–55, archive no. 3412, 3413.
33) Ibid., 55, archive no. 3414, 3415 and 3416.
34) Moss, Graham, Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, no. 185.