1740-1850

It was common practice to protect large jars with an outer casing of a variety of woven or plaited material, and snuff bottles simulating a vessel tightly contained in a wicker basket or entirely simulating basketweave are found in a variety of materials including ivory, jade, amber, rock crystal, molded gourd and glass. For a discussion on the series of 'basketweave' snuff bottles in various materials see Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol. 2, Part 2, Hong Kong, 1998, pp. 450-1, no. 347, where it is suggested that the design was a popular Imperial subject of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The popularity of the basketweave design in general at the Court may arise from the probable symbolism of the basket (lanzi), which is a pun on male children (nanzi), one of the three desires dear to the Chinese heart, which are embodied in the term sanduo ('Three Plenties').

A more ovoid version of this type, with the plain neck rising from the basketweave pattern, was sold at Christie's, New York, 13-14 September 2012, lot 1120. Another type, where the entire bottle is carved as a woven basket, is illustrated in ibid., Vol.1, Hong Kong, 1995, pp. 240-1, no. 98.