Snuff bottle, inside-painted glass, China, 1850-1880

People generally carried snuff in a small bottle. The bottle is a squarish flattened flask form with a short cylindrical neck and no stopper. It is made of glass, transparent, painted on the inside in red, black, green and blue, with carved details. The deocration depicts a qilin , a mythical creature with a scaly, deer like body, antlers and cloven hooves, but with a bushy tail and a dragon's head (Cammann, 1956, p.102), with books above in a cloud of vapour.

On the reverse there is a horse running on water with a yin-yang motif rising out of vapour. Masks and mock ring handles are carved on the shoulders, a magic fungus (one badly deteriorated) painted in each ring handle. The faceted foot has an indentation underneath. A qilin was said to have vomited precious writings at the birth of Confucius (Clunas, 1984, P.136). The horse probably represents the dragon-horse which emerged form the waters of the Yellow River bearing the diagram that enabled engineer-emperor Yu to control the waters of the river (Needham, 1959, P.56). This is an interesting example of an inside-painted bottle dating from before 1880, when it was bought by the Museum.

The inside-painted decoration has not survived well and may have been done before the technique as it later developed was widely known. It is quite different from the inside painted bottles produced during the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century.