A ruby red overlay glass snuff bottle, Four noble occupations, early

China, a ruby red overlay glass snuff bottle, Four noble occupations, early 19th century.

A well carved ruby red overlay almost translucent snuffbottle adorned with four noble occupations (yu qiao geng du): woodsman, farmer, scholar, fisherman.
Later stopper,
5.5 x 5,5 x 2,5 without stopper

China, early 19th century

Former collection of the administrator of the Bon Marché department store in Paris circa 1900.
The four occupations of people was a hierarchic social class structure developed in ancient China by either Confucian or Legalist scholars as far back as the late Zhou Dynasty and is considered a central part of the social structure.