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I bought this because the finial is a rare example of a Boshan millefiori bead. Also because I like the 4 little landscape scenes around the sides - a voyage in brass.

But I'm also curious what the characters mean - the only one I recognize is "shan" - "mountain."

The box is stamped "CMINA" on the bottom, so apparently was made for export.

万寿山, Wanshou shan (Longevity Hill)
昆明湖, Kunming hu (Kunming Lake)

Google the Summer Palace, Beijing

The boat and bridge are pretty distinctive, I guess.

A tourist souvenir from the past?

You may be interested in looking at the link. I think both are made by the same source, and would date about the same time. Regards, Jim

URL Title :Champleve\' Box

I had guessed that the bottom stamp indicated early 1890s-1920s, so it was reassuring to see the Collector's Weekly site poster thought the same thing.

Here are some links to a beadcollectors.net discussion about these distinctive Chinese glass beads. The older ones are pretty rare.

http://beadcollector.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?fvp=/openforum/&cmd=get&cG=135363038373&zu=313536303837&v=2&gV=0&p=

http://beadcollector.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?fvp=/openforum/&cmd=get&cG=134363734323&zu=313436373432&v=2&gV=0&p=

URL Title :Boshan glass beads from Tucson Gem Show & Much Older Ones

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