Page 26 - CHRISTIE'S Barron Collection Snuff Bottles 09/13/17

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AN ENAMELED WHITE GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
WANG XISAN, BEIJING, 1964-1966
The fnely detailed bottle is decorated in bright enamels with birds
on fowering branches emerging from rocks. The base is painted in
blue enamel with an apocryphal Qianlong seal mark.
2¬ in. (6.6 cm.) high, metal stopper
$20,000-30,000

PROVENANCE

Robert Kleiner, Belfont Company Ltd., Hong Kong, 2001.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 3211

Born in 1938, Wang Xisan (Wang Ruicheng) was the star pupil of
Ye Bengqi, the son of Ye Zhongsan, the artist who revitalized the
Beijing school of painting in the late 1950s. Ye Bengqi took up the
art of enameling again in the early 1960s to teach Wang Xisan,
and it is sometimes dificult with earlier Wang Xisan bottles to
distinguish them from his teachers’, or in some cases, from earlier
Qianlong examples. The two-character reign mark in seal script
seen on the present bottle was only used on enameled wares in
the early 1960s.

For a discussion on the artist Wang Xisan see Moss, Graham,
Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuf Bottles, the Mary and George
Bloch Collection, Volume 6, Part 1, Hong Kong, 2008, pp. 273-275.
The authors note, “As an artistic genius, Wang rapidly became one
of the fnest of all enamellers, both artistically and technically, that
China has ever produced.” The artist paints glass snuf bottles and
interior-painted snuf bottles, showing great artistry in both. The
present example is typical of the quality of his painting on glass.
Generally executed in famille rose enamels with foral subjects
beneath a decorative border, his works echo the best enameled
bottles produced at the imperial workshops during the reign of
the Qianlong emperor.
1964-1966年 王習三作玻璃畫琺瑯花鳥圖鼻煙壺

(another view)

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