Description
Description: Chinese agate snuff bottle shaped as caltrop, a water seed of the Trapa family, also known as bat nut because of its shape. It is carved out from a dark blue/black agate, with brown inclusions on one side, evidenced by the inside lighting in the last picture. This bottle has been remarkably cared of, from the choosing of the stone to its shaping and finishing and care of details like the mouth and the base. It must have been intended as an augural bottle, due to the resemblance with the bat, which in Chinese is fu (福), meaning ‘fortune’. According to Terese Tse Bartholomew, it was custom by women to wear a pair of caltrop. Being them resembling the two knots of hair that young girls used to wear on the sides of their head, the black color of the caltrops conveyed a wish that their hair would always stay black instead of turning white with age.
Foot/base: Concave base and mouth
Mark:
Dating: 19th Century.
Material: Agate
Size: 38.6 mm high
Stopper: Agate stopper and bone spoon.
Provenance: Ex Sergia Iessi collection. About this collector, see Provenance of the hornbill bottle O35.
References:
Notes:
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.