POSSIBLY IMPERIAL, POSSIBLY PALACE WORKSHOPS, BEIJING, 1720-1830

This rare snuff bottle is elegantly carved on either side with a pair of confronted, writhing chi dragons. The formal style, subject, small size and wide mouth all suggest a date in the early stages of snuff bottle manufacture, when the snuff-taking habit was first introduced at the court in Beijing. This imperial taste is seen in snuff bottles in a variety of material that were also likely produced in the imperial workshops, including a transparent brown-glass snuff bottle with archaistic dragon design and mask handles illustrated by Moss et al., A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol. 5, Part 2, Hong Kong, 2002, p. 349, no. 830, and a related carved green glass example sold at Christie’s New York, 13 September 2012, lot 1153.

This amber bottle is particularly refined. While it is unknown if this bottle was created in the Palace workshops or produced elsewhere in response to Palace fashions, the court taste for amber snuff bottles is evidenced by the existence of a group of amber bottles still in the imperial collection. See Snuff Bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Musuem, Taipei, 1991, pp. 255-58, nos. 379-87.