Chinese snuff bottle? Why does it look like this?

While normally I would not challenge Taupou, but in this instance I think it would be wrong to consider this an error. I used the word "lava" knowing its recent connotation, but lacking another word to use in its stead. I really do think more research is required because, as Taupou said, the look or effect could go back centuries. Things like snuff bottles can have a myriad of very specific terminologies associated with them and a strong aspect of novelty is not to be discounted in their production then or now. I think you need input from a specialist.

 

MOS, any suggestions of who to run it by?

I tried searching Google with any words I could think of for a snuff bottle like this, but nothing relevant came up.

 

Maybe museums or auction houses. There are any number of books out there on the subject.

 

And "pitting" might sound better than "pits"?

 

When the actual use of snuff bottles was at its peak, both in Europe and China, nearly everyone had one, that they used on a daily basis. It was therefore handled a lot. You wouldn't want a rough, sharp, or scratchy one.

Like Japanese netsuke, it was valued both for its functional, and aesthetic, features. Even today, to collectors, the smooth, tactile quality is often part of the appeal. I don't think there would have been much demand for one like this, with its pitted surface, regardless of the visual appeal.

Potters tend to make what sells, and functional potters make what the buying public wants. The only use this one might have would be to someone trying to kick the habit. ("Dang bottle, cut my hand again! That's it...no more snuff!")

 

I didn't mean to imply that someone wouldn't want it today, as a collectible. Just that it wouldn't make a very good functional snuff bottle that was meant to have frequent use, and therefore I doubt if the texture was intentionally created.

 

That's probably because there really wasn't any such term. "Firing mistake" or some censored potter's language would be the closest you'd come.

This type of glaze wasn't intentionally created on a wide scale until the last hundred years or so, achieving its greatest popularity in German Art Pottery in the mid-20th century, and in the pottery revival of the 1960s/1980s in the U.S.

 

LOL!

Taupou, thanks again for all the info and perspective... I really appreciate it.

Is there any way to even guesstimate the age?

 

I have never ever seen such glaze on Chinese pottery. If Chinese, I doubt it was intentional. On the other hand, the Chinese knew pretty well how to fire, at least during Emperial China and the Republic. The pieces for the palace and officials were almost flawless. Some commercial ware was pretty sloppy during the end of the empire but never that bad.
So, I don't know ...

 

Unfortunately, I don't know the provenance, other than it was in with my mother's things.

During the 1980s-1990s, the area where she lived in Queens, NY, had such a large influx of people from China and other Asian countries that by the early 2000s, most storefronts and restaurants had signs that weren't in English.

My mother frequented antique shops and shows, as well as flea markets, so it's possible the snuff bottle belonged to a local Asian family and found its way to a place where my mother shopped.

Assuming Taupou is right about it being misfired... which I suspect is right... I wonder if it stayed in the same family for a long time and then became part of a dispersed estate? Perhaps had even been in the potters own family? But obviously, I'll never know.

This is why I love antiques, but also why it drives me crazy sometimes from wanting to know the stories behind things....

 

Try the Asian Arts Forum:

http://www.asianart.com/phpforum/index.php

Don't know if that will help or not, but its worth a try.

 

Thanks, MOS!

 

Or here
http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com

The asianart forum used to be topnotch but in the recent years it is slowly dying.

 

Thanks, Kard!

 

I haven't posted on the snuff bottle site yet, but think I may have come up with an explanation for my bottle's surface.

I saw a few snuff bottles on the Victorian & Albert Museum's site that were made from a form of lava. Although they didn't look like my bottle, I've seen natural red lava on the web that looks somewhat like my bottle.

Here are a couple of images I found... the first is chunks of lava, the second shows beads made from it....

 

This Snuff bottle possible could have been made at a Home Made Kiln in someone's back yard.

 

The photo of the bottle on its side, with the bottom showing, clearly shows that it is glazed pottery, not made from lava.

While over-fired glaze can develop the pits and jagged edges associated with lava, it also has a bumpy, lumpy surface where the bubbles haven't been broken. If lava is cut and worked on to make smooth beads, on the other hand, it doesn't have any of those bubbles or lumps, it has a smooth surface with pits.

Again, as mentioned earlier, a snuff bottle would not purposely be made with a rough,sharp-edged surface which would not only be unpleasant to the touch, but would also pose the risk of scrapes or cuts while using it. One of the aims of the snuff bottle was to create a pleasing textural quality. Even if it had relief decoration, it was smooth.

The comparison to lava is interesting, however, to explain what happens when ceramic glaze is fired too hot. Both are created from earth minerals, primarily silicate, and subjected to high heat which causes chemical reactions. Volcanic lava can occur in a range of final forms, from smooth glass (obsidian) to jagged, sharp edged a'a lava. Ceramic glaze is similar. Depending on the composition of the glaze and the firing time and temperature, a wide range of effects can be created.

 

I've never heard of lava glaze used by the Chinese. They used amygdaloidal basalt for carvings but they were nicely polished.
Again, old Chinese pieces, whatever they were made of, were most of the time very well made.
If something misfired so badly it would be rejected.
So, maybe it is not Chinese ... or something from the pre-Qing dynasties....
Anyway, try to post on the snuff bottles forum. It won't hurt. I am sure you'll get better answers there.

 

Guys, you're probably right... was just a thought on my part. I was waiting until after the holidays to post on the snuff bottle forum....

 

Here's what I admit is a half-baked idea. It was made for sailors who needed snuff bottles that wouldn't slide off tables so easily when their boat or ship rolled at sea. This was the "added traction" model.