Description
Glass; of faceted octagonal shape with a raised faceted panel on each side and a wide mouth, the body of pale lemon-yellow colour, attributed to the Imperial glassworks, Beijing.
The faceted form is now very well established as being one of the staples of early Imperial glass production, inspired by European faceted watch cases. An admonition by the Yongzheng Emperor in 1727 stated that the workshops should attempt to move away from these ‘foreign forms’ (see Luster of Autumn Water, p. 97), but in spite of this, the form was to prove one of the most enduring in Chinese glass production, with examples recorded in the Palace Museum in Beijing all the way to the final reign of the Qing dynasty, that of Xuandong (1909-1911).
This bottle is of the classic softly contoured shape of those with authentic reign-marks from the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods. Numerous examples have been recently excavated in Beijing in various stages of degradation due to centuries of burial and these have had to be re-polished, which removes this special quality.
An almost identical bottle is illustrated in The White Wings Collection, no. 34 and another in the Nordic Butterfly Collection, no. 2.
