The first bottles we decided to buy that were not carved out of stone were made of glass. A huge range of glass bottles is to be found in all shapes and colours as well as a variety of manufacturing techniques.
Much more research is needed in order to date these bottles, but it is generally now agreed that glass and metal bottles were the earliest materials to be used. The problem is that glass has been used throughout the whole snuff bottle period right up to the present day.
The Chinese had little use for glass prior to the 17th century mainly because of their highly refined porcelain skills. They had no glass windows, favouring translucent paper. We are not sure if glass had been used centuries earlier in China but it was certainly introduced to them by Europeans in good time for snuff bottles.
Cameo Glass
They considered it as a valuable material and excelled in producing very fine works of art. Sometimes they treated it just like a stone and carved bottles out of a solid piece, otherwise they blew glass into moulds.
Creating many unusual bottles ranging from transparent to white as backgrounds for colour overlay work. They were also able to control bubbles and by the addition of white flecks in the glass, colours such as these apt names suggest were created: – Sodden Snow, Camphor, and Snowflakes.
These bottles would then be dipped into bright coloured molten glass which later would be carved away to leave a cameo style of design. Some were dipped more than once to provide more than one coloured layer.
Another technique was to apply to different areas of the bottle coloured molten blobs of glass. When these were carved the bottle could have up to as many as eight different colours cameo carved without increasing the number of layers.
Quality Counts
To a connoisseur, the number of colours or layers is not so very important, as it was not such a difficult process and a far softer material to carve than stone. What really should be valued is the quality of the carving and the overall design. Quite often a wonderfully carved and well-designed single colour overlay will be worth far more than a multicolour but poorly finished bottle.
To assess these bottles the colour is a consideration but great attention is paid just as with stone cameo carving, to the quality of the carving and especially to how well the background is finished close to the edge of the overlay. I have selected a ruby red single overlay as a good example to photograph.
It shows a coiled `Chih Lung’ or dragon on both sides; also having mythological animal mask and mock ring handles on each shoulder 1750 – 1860. The dragon is a birth sign used rather like our zodiac signs. (See the photograph by clicking on the link at the end of this article).
There is a group of rather special, very finely worked overlay bottles known as the `Seal School’ because they always include a seal with the design. They were made later and date back from the second half of the 19th century.
Although these were made in the same way, the overlay is far more delicately carved and often even the thickness of the overlay is controlled to create shading. They normally used opaque white bottles as the background but some were also worked on other opaque colours. So far, I have never seen any on the clear or snowflake backgrounds.
The photograph* shows a fine seal school bottle depicting a pair of cats at play with hovering insects amongst the flowers. On each side there is a bowl of fruit on a table and on the reverse is another scene of a drunken poet asleep in a garden.
Layers of Glass
Apart from these overlay types there are many interesting mottled, swirling and colourful designs as well as the plain colour bottles, both uncarved and carved.
Many of these were quite complex in the way they were made: some were blown into moulds then finished by hand; others involved blowing a clear glass into a mould but then another layer was blown inside the first bottle. This layer was a thin colourful one, sandwiched by yet a third clear layer that was also blown in. When looking down at the neck of one of these bottles you can clearly see these three layers.
A variety of colours were successfully used, together with gold in the creation of snuff bottles. There is no doubt that their advanced knowledge acquired in firing porcelain, and how metallic oxides react, was put to good use in glass.
It has also been suggested that apart from mixing in metals, even small particles of precious gemstones such as Sapphires, Emeralds and Rubies were added to the molten glass.
Particular attention was given to the feel of the finished material, which was achieved by the type of polishing and even the weight was controlled by the addition of lead. With transparent bottles the inside could be controlled and made to appear crazed as these names suggest – Cracked Ice, Fish Net or Sea Spray.
Most of the really fine snuff bottles were made in the Imperial Workshop and other small glass works around Peking.
Stone Imitations
With such expertise the Chinese were able to make astounding imitations of other materials. There are many bottles that look and feel just like Jade, Aquamarine, Agate and other stones. There has been a view in the past that the Chinese made these as fakes with the intention to deceive.
I am sure that this was not the case, as it was far too easy to find them out by careful inspection. Under magnification little holes on the surface that could not be polished out and tiny bubbles would be seen proving it must be glass. Lastly, glass unlike the stones can be scratched quite easily by steel.
The Chinese enjoyed making convincing imitations of highly valued minerals as a demonstration of their skill. One other mineral cleverly copied was Realgar with its bright red and yellow swirling colours, impossible to use because of a high arsenic content, so these copies would have caused a lot of intrigue.
source : John N. Cohen
