Page 52 - CHRISTIE'S Barron Collection Snuff Bottles 09/13/17

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A RARE INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
SIGNED DING ERZHONG, DATED THE EIGHTH MONTH OF THE WUXU
(1898)
The bottle is decorated with a continuous mountainous river landscape and an
inscription incorporating a cyclical date, wuxu (1898), and a signature, Erzhong, followed
by a seal, ‘Ding’.

2Ω in. (6.3 cm.) high, chalcedony stopper
$40,000-60,000

PROVENANCE

The Henry and Lynn Prager Collection.
Robert Kleiner, London.
The Quentin Loh Collection, 2001.
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd., Hong Kong, 2004.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 3994.

EXHIBITED

Boston, International Chinese Snuf Bottle Society Convention, The Barron Collection,
23-26 September 2008.

Ding ranks as one of the pre-eminent masters of inside-painted snuf bottles. Based in
Beijing, he served as an oficial in the Qing government, although it is his work in the area
of inside-painted snuf bottles for which he is most recognized today. Ding’s range of
subject matter was fairly wide, and even among his favorite landscapes, no two are alike.
He re-invented the composition with every painting, and drew inspiration from Tang,
Song, Yuan and Ming masters. The landscape on this bottle is inspired by the Song style,
and the highly efective composition is a refection of Ding’s immense talent.

The height of Ding’s career as a snuf bottle painter came in the years 1897, 1898 and
1899 which saw the production of the current bottle in 1898. In reference to another
bottle of similar composition, which Ding painted in 1898, Moss, Graham and Tsang
point out that his style during this time could be called his “‘formal rocks’ style, where
abstract intentions predominate. It is recognizable, apart from this intention, by the use
of large rock forms balanced against smaller boulders set around their bases, even when
the distance is indicated by the composition in “ A Treasury of Chinese Snuf Bottles, The
Mary and George Bloch Collection, Hong Kong, 2000, Vol. 4, Part 1, p. 301. The landscape
appears to be without human interference, but upon close inspection the viewer can see
a vermillion form through the open wall of the pavilion in the foreground, the color which
Ding regularly uses to depict scholar’s robes. On the reverse side from the scholar, a
bridge in the upper left is also highlighted with vermillion, possibly an abstract reference
to the earlier path taken by the scholar, or the last rays of a setting sun.
戊戌年（1898） 丁二仲作玻璃内畫通景山水圖鼻煙壺

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