{"id":8738,"date":"2016-12-18T12:52:38","date_gmt":"2016-12-18T17:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andrewbaseman.com\/blog\/?p=8738"},"modified":"2016-12-18T14:45:21","modified_gmt":"2016-12-18T19:45:21","slug":"chinese-dollhouse-snuff-bottle-c-1700","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/?p=8738","title":{"rendered":"Chinese dollhouse snuff bottle, c.1700"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I seem to have a thing for miniatures. I marvel at the craftsmanship of creating tiny versions of larger pieces, which requires more time and skill, as well as good eyesight and nimble fingers. When I was at a street market in Egypt many years ago, I saw hundreds of lanterns made of tin and painted glass. One vendor had minuscule working lanterns, no more than 3 inches, which held tiny birthday cake candles. Even though they were a fraction of the size of the other lanterns, they were the same price and took just as long to make, if not longer.<\/p>\n<p>So you can imagine how I was doubly thrilled when I found this miniature porcelain dollhouse snuff bottle with an inventive repair. It was made in China during the\u00a0Kangxi period (1662-1722), has\u00a0blue underglaze decoration of figures, and measures 2.75 inches tall. But there&#8217;s more to the\u00a0story, as this bottle started its life\u00a0as a vase. Well over 150\u00a0years\u00a0ago, after its neck broke off,\u00a0a\u00a0silversmith added a silver collar\u00a0with etched decoration, cork, and a top attached to a spoon, transforming the\u00a0broken vase into a functional snuff bottle. It has a sword shaped\u00a0Dutch hallmark dating the repair to\u00a0the mid-1800s.<\/p>\n<p>I now have five tiny Chinese dollhouse miniatures in my collection and try not to inhale too deeply around them.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/?attachment_id=11731\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11731\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11731\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8168-Version-2.jpg\" alt=\"img_8168-version-2\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8168-Version-2.jpg 400w, http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8168-Version-2-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8168-Version-2-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/?attachment_id=11732\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11732\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11732\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8170.jpg\" alt=\"img_8170\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8170.jpg 400w, http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8170-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8170-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/?attachment_id=11734\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11734\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11734\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8172.jpg\" alt=\"img_8172\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8172.jpg 400w, http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8172-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8172-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/?attachment_id=11735\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11735\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11735\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8176.jpg\" alt=\"img_8176\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8176.jpg 400w, http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8176-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_8176-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This pair of miniature vases with similar form and decoration show what the original neck on my vase looked like before it was transformed into a snuff bottle.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/?attachment_id=11736\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11736\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11736\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/90.jpg\" alt=\"90\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/90.jpg 400w, http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/90-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/90-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Photo courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santoslondon.com\">Santos<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I seem to have a thing for miniatures. I marvel at the craftsmanship of creating tiny versions of larger pieces, which requires more time and skill, as well as good eyesight and nimble fingers. When I was at a street market in Egypt many years ago, I saw hundreds of lanterns made of tin and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,14],"tags":[15,7,13,16,17],"class_list":["post-8738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toy","category-vase","tag-blue-white","tag-chinese","tag-miniature","tag-porcelain","tag-silver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8738"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11748,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8738\/revisions\/11748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}