15 - AN INCISED TURQUOISE GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE, PROBABLY JIANGNAN REGION, 1850-1900

AN INCISED TURQUOISE GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE, PROBABLY JIANGNAN REGION, 1850-1900 To Be Sold Without Reserve Of flattened pear shape with a flared neck and recessed oval foot, finely incised on one side with two boys watching a fish in a large fishbowl in a fenced garden with bamboo and on the other a lady seated reading on a rock in a garden setting, inscribed on one side `The loveliness (lit. colour) of a beautiful woman [combined with] the writing of the ancients’, and on the foot with the signature Yushan fanggu (`Yushan, copying the ancients’) Height: 5cm Provenance: Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd, 5th September 1994, (a copy of the original invoice available) The poem here seems to be suggesting that the decoration combines outward beauty with inner qualities, the writing of the ancients being a metaphor for profundity and good taste. Yushan is a zi or assumed artistic name, and is not listed as belonging to anyone in particular in the various biographical dictionaries. However, it relates to a bottle from the J & J Collection, with a similar subject incised on jet (Moss, Graham, Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, no. 91). Another is known in lacquer, apparently by the same hand as the J & J example (collection of Lutz Franz, Hong Kong) which is signed by a known literatus, Zhao Qi. It is dated to 1876, suggesting a possible date for this example as well. Zhao Qi was from Jiangsu province. He was a famous artist who studied figure painting under Wang Su, (Xiaomu) the Yangzhou painter who influenced Yangzhou glass and the likeness to whose style I proposed in relation to the above-mentioned J & J bottle. He was also well known for his bamboo carving and his ability to inscribe very small characters. In his biography in the Zhongguo meishujia renming zidian, Ed. Yu Jianhua, (p. 1290) his dates are not given, but if he studied under Wang Su, 1876 is the only possible date for the lacquer bottle in the Lutz collection. It is likely that a vogue for the subjects of Wang Su was established in the latter part of the nineteenth century in the area around Yangzhou, where he worked, and was adopted by various artists, including the mysterious Yushan who made this botttle In any case, incised work of this type signed by individual artists tends to be late in the Qing dynasty, and the artists who commanded the medium to this level of quality are rare. In glass, the other who springs to mind is the famous turn of the century artist Zhou Honglai (see, ibid. no. 406, for an example) Ω This Lot was imported from outside of the UK, under the Temporary Admission regime 5% import VAT will be charged on the ‘hammer” and 20% VAT will be charged on the ‘buyer’s premium