Banded agate snuff bottle with agate stopper, circa 18th century

[ca. 1700–1799]

Flattened ovoidal flask with rounded shoulders. In the immediate foreground carved in relief from a brown zone is a boatsman rowing a sampan under an overhead orb. The orb is carved in relief against the gray striped ground. The bottle is finely polished. The interior is artfully hollowed. The flask has a short cylindrical neck and an oval pedestal foot. The banding of stripes on this bottle is most unusual. Since the pattern of stripes encircles the bottle, it would seem to indicate that this was fashioned from a small mass formed as a pebble and was not a piece cut from a large block of agate.