Six carved mineral snuff bottles
19th centuryComprising: a flattened globular rock crystal bottle on polished foot, carved all over with diaper pattern containing repeat shou character, 5.2cm high; a mother-of-pearl example carved to one side with a bird on a branch, 5cm high; an oviform example with mask-and-ring handles raised on an oval footrim, in mottled cream and ochre stone, 5.2cm high; a small bowenite example lightly carved with lotus flower design, 4.2cm high; a flattened heart-shaped bottle in mottled green mineral, 5.2cm high; and a white mineral example with russet coloured tone at one shoulder, 5.4cm high.Each with stopper. (12).
注脚
Provenance: from a collection amassed in Hong Kong during the late 1960s and early 1970s by an English civil engineer working on the first cross-harbour tunnel and later in the 1970s on the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and now by descent to the current owner.