Description
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A Chinese Peking glass vase, of globular form extending upward in a long cylindrical neck. A continuous keyfret border encircles the mouth; a band of ruyi lappets just below. Plantain leaves encircle the neck just below the top of the body; ringed in a band of ruyi lappets. The bulbous main body depicting the life of a fisherman; on one side crossing a bridge, carrying his catch on a pole and returning home after a day’s work. On the other side, his day begins fishing in a small boat. Foliage such as pine, bamboo, and prunus (known as “the three friends of winter”) fill in the spaces along with bats and lingbi stones. A band of lotus petals encircles the lower body, just above a foot rim decorated in a continuous keyfret border. The underside incised with a maker’s mark (福德堂製 Fú dé táng zhì), likely a private glassmaker either in Boshan, Shandong province in the north or in Guangzhou, Guangdong in the south. Notwithstanding locating the manufacturer through historical records, it’s likely this was produced in Boshan, reflecting the immense size and scale of Boshan’s glass-making industry at the time.
Glass of this kind was created by first using a core in which a glass blower makes the initial body shape. Overlay (sometimes referred to as “cameo”) is the process in which several layers of colored glass liquid are heated and then applied in layers overtop the body of the glass object. After the glass cools, the top layer is carved away to expose the layer below creating a multilayered design a process not dissimilar in spirit to carving layers of lacquer although with a hardness and techniques much closer to carving jade than lacquer.
This “Fisherman on the way home” imagery was popular during the reigns of Jiaqing (1796–1820) and Daoguan (1820–1850) and can be seen on dated Chinese peking glass snuff bottles from those periods. See “Glass Snuff Bottles” Muwentang Collection 19. The overall detail and craftsmanship of this vase is also reflective of an early 19th century dating. For other vases of similar form and also dated to the 19th century see “Elegance and Radiance: Grandeur in Qing Glass (The Andrew K.F. Lee Collection)”
