vase BM-SLMisc.1696

Period:Qing dynasty Production date:1723-1750
Materials:glass, stone,
Technique:moulded, blown,

Dimensions:Height: 16.20 centimetres

Description:
Pair of hexagonal mould-blown glass vases. Made of glass in imitation of realgar, a poisonous substance thought by Daoists to be capable of conferring immortality.
IMG


Comments:Sir Hans Sloane’s ‘Miscellanea’ catalogue is a bound volume in Central Archives containing seven separate catalogues: ‘Miscellanies’, ‘Antiquities’, ‘Seals’, ‘Pictures’, ‘Mathematical Instruments’, ‘Agate Handles’ and ‘Agate Cups, Bottles, Spoons’. Each contains numbered entries that list and describe objects collected by Sloane between the 1680s and 1750s. Each catalogue begins with object number one.Text from Sloane Miscellanea catalogue: Miscellanea Miscellanies 1696 “1696. Two jarrs of the same. Id. A kind of glasse semi diaphonous.”; id. Referring to Miscellanea Miscellanies 1694 “1694. A box for tea made of a spotted wood from the Molucco Islands made in China & fill’d wt. three tutenage canisters full of Ling-ci-sing. a stomachic. 2 Luvy lue a cordiall. 3. ball tea a stomachic. From Mr. Bell.” In Sloane’s catalogue of Miscellanies, he recorded as number1694: ‘A box for tea made of a spotted wood from the Molucco Islands made in China & fill’d wt. three tutenagecanisters full of 1. Ling-ci-sing. a stomachic. 2. Luvylue a cordiall. 3. ball tea a stomachic.From Mr. Bell.1695. A China bason yellow & red made of flints carried from England.1696. Two jarrs of the same. Id. A kind of glasse semidiaphonous.1697. Four chocolate cups of the same. One of w ch : was stole1698. Four China basons of a dark brown colour waved wt. White lines. From the same.1701. A small China pencill for writing. from Mr. Bell.’It seems likely that the objects imitating realgar, but made from English flints, were also from Mr Bell, a surgeon in Canton 1730-31. Rawson 1992:In the Qing dynasty, under Emperor Kangxi (1662-1722), a glasshouse was set up in 1696 within the Imperial Workshop in the Forbidden City in Beijing. This greatly increased the status of glass and resulted in a flourishing of glass production. The glasshouse was supervised by a German Jesuit called Stumpf, and glass produced during the first half of the eighteenth century seems to have suffered from the same defect as much Western glass of that period – crizzling. This is a gradual cracking and flaking in a web-like structure caused by an excess of alkali (too much soda and too little lime). Although the Western supervisors influenced the technology of glass making, they were not to be responsible for any great changes in the style of glass vessels. The shapes produced were undoubtedly Chinese, often reflecting those of ceramic, lacquer, jade and bronze vessels. The vessels were decorated in a variety of techniques such as moulding, incising, carving, diamond-point engraving, overlay (or cameo glass) and enamelling; Glass was also made to imitate realgar and aventurine, lapis lazuli, turquoise and jasper, just as it had been in earlier times, as a cheap substitute for jade. Realgar, poisnous arsenic sulphide, has been used by Daoists in the practice of alchemy in their search for substances that would confer longevity, and glass imitations of realgar were safer while still retaining the auspicious connotations of the genuine stone.