AN IMITATION 'REALGAR' GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE, 19TH CENTURY

拍品描述

AN IMITATION 'REALGAR' GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE, 19TH CENTURY China. Of oval spade form, raised on a concave foot and rising to a cylindrical neck with a flat lip. The body is of ruby-red, orange-yellow and orange-brown tones with some slight green coloring. Stopper: Turquoise on a red glass collar Dimensions: Height including stopper 66 mm. Diameter neck 19 mm and mouth 6 mm. There is a wide range of glass, particularly popular within the snuff-bottle corpus, which imitates realgar. Realgar is the least toxic of all arsenic compounds, but it tends to break down on long exposure to sunlight and eventually disintegrates into a fine powder. It is the fifth basic element to the Chinese and played an important role for the alchemist, for whom it symbolized longevity and immortality. The abstract markings on the present snuff bottle suggest the heart of a blazing fire in which everything is transformed. This is particularly appropriate for the Daoist alchemist attempting to transform base metal into gold and limited existence into immortality as metaphors for the transformation of human consciousness. Literature comparison: Compare a closely related realgar glass snuff bottle, dated Qianlong period, 5.9 cm tall, illustrated in Wang & Co., One Man's Choice... / 23 - 27 September 2008, Beijing, 2008, p. 30, no. 27. Auction result comparison: Type: Near-identical Auction: Bonhams Hong Kong, 24 November 2012, lot 95 Price: HKD 27,500 or approx. EUR 4,300 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Expert remark: Compare the closely related form and mottled design. Note the size (5.8 cm).

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