A while back we did a post on unlikely sources of inspiration moving from an online auction of rare books and manuscripts. Let's return to that thread by looking at other beautiful objects on auction that may fill our eyes with beauty and provide us with ideas for art or fashion projects. Sotheby's has currently got an online auction of snuff bottles from a German private collection (from today till 10th February) that looks particularly intriguing. The bottles, all of them works of art from China, are made with the finest materials, from porcelain to carved agate, amber, jade and jadeite, tourmaline, coral, quartz, crystal and chalcedony.
The pieces, part of a collection assembled by an erudite German collector from the late 1970s to 1990s, tell the story of the wealth and power of the last imperial dynasty of China.
While some of the bottles come in solid colours, others feature decorative motifs and the details on some of them are simply exquisite. Through the bottles it is indeed possible to study the various techniques and materials favoured during the Qing dynasty: there are enamelled, moulded, carved and glazed bottles. Some of them feature European-subjects, others incorporate lively mythological scenes, floral and animal motifs and landscapes.
There is therefore technical virtuosity and skilled workmanship in each and every bottle, but the ones in multi-coloured overlay glass look particularly charming and would translate pretty well into inspirations for clothes or accessories as well.
In these cases glass was used to imitate the properies of jade, crystal, stone and amber, and the bottles were enriched with an overlay glass technique, in which layered glass of different colours was carved in low relief. Functionally, agate bottles were better as agate is actually less prone to shattering in colder climates compared to glass.
Yet the overlayered glass bottles feature some beautiful colours or colour combinations: at times, a bright ruby red is employed to create miniature scenes on a milky white background, at others the artisans who made the bottles opted for five different colours and designed delicate motifs in pink, green, orange, turquoise and cobalt blue. Motifs range from flowers to fish, while most bottles have a stopper in glass, coral, tourmaline, jade, jadeite or amethyst.
It if you prefer something less colourful and more inspiring for the Autumn/Winter seasons, check out the snuff bottles in natural stone without embellishments: there are bottles in puddingstone, a conglomerate of pebbles cemented together in a matrix over billions of years that incorporates stones in contrasting colours and shapes, fossiliferous limestone or lapis lazuli, textures that may inspire wonderful knitwear. Rutilated quartz crystal bottles that incorporate element similar to strands of human hair may instead inspire graphic patterns for textiles.
So, remember, whenever you feel drained from energies and ideas, think laterally, and look for unusual objects that may fill your eyes with beauty and your mind with inspirations.
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