Page 185 - March 22 2022 Bonhams

(two views)

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

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A FINE INSIDE-PAINTED ‘LANDSCAPE’ CRYSTAL BOTTLE discussion of his supremacy in the field, see Hugh Moss, Victor
Signed Zhou Leyuan and dated Autumn Renchen year corresponding Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The
to 1892 Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol. 4, Part I, Inside Painted,
Of flattened rectangular shape, extremely well painted with a pp. 90-93, no. 465. He is one of the great classic landscape artists
continuous mountainous lakeside scene with a scholar and his working in this miniature form. He seems to re-invent and re-think
assistant on a grassy promontory with pine and another tree below even the most superficially similar landscape subjects, like the trees,
the inscription and seal on one side, and a figure punting a boat near mountains and lakes.
a low thatched building on a grassy outcrop with a waterfall and
stream beyond and mountains in the far distance. For further discussion of his work and an earlier bottle, dated 1884,
2 3/16in (5.4cm) high, stopper, box with a similar subject but painted in a darker palette, see Michael C.
Hughes, The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Chinese Snuff Bottles,
$8,000 - 10,000 Baltimore, 2009, pp. 256-257, no. 198.

For two other landscape bottles dated to the 1892, see Sotheby’s,
周樂元壬辰款 (1892 年) 水晶内繪山水鼻烟壺 New York, The Joe Grimberg Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 14
September 2010, lot 33; and Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo
Zhou Leyuan is acknowledged as the most pivotal snuff bottle artist Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Mary and George
of the late Qing dynasty. The art of the inside-painted bottle reached Bloch Collection, Vol 4, Part 1, Inside Painted, pp. 178-180, no. 499.
its zenith between the 1880s and the 1920s with Zhou Leyuan as
the single most influential figure amongst a host of many. For a full

CHINESE WORKS OF ART | 183