Page 15 - September 21 2021 MAnfred Arnold Collection snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

405
AN INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE Zhou Leyuan is one of the great classic landscape artists working
Zhou Leyuan in this miniature form. He seems to re-invent and re-think even the
Signed and dated xinmao year, corresponding to 1891 most superficially similar landscape subjects, like the trees, mountains
Delicately painted with a continuous riverscape and further inscribed and lakes in this bottle. For example the foreground hillocks, left
‘painted at the Lotus Fragrance Studio, Beijing’ followed by the seal paler in color than the surrounding mound they form, covered with
Yuanyin; stopper. small, energized, jet-black strokes, all curved in the same direction,
2 1/4in (5.6cm) high to represent the grass on the hilly mounds. Under magnification, they
create a delightful chorus of brushstrokes that never falter. It is often
$3,500 - 4,000 in these minor details of a painting that we see the true artist’s total
commitment to the work of art. A lesser artist or a more commercial
辛卯年(1891) 周樂元 玻璃内畫青山碧水圖鼻煙壺 one, dealing with repetitive detail of this sort, which can hardly be seen
as separate brush-strokes under normal circumstances, would tend
Provenance: to get sloppy or use an easy way out to achieve the same effect. Zhou
Dr. and Mrs. Louis E. Wolferz has created, in landscape after landscape, a faultless symphony of tiny,
Sotheby’s, New York, The Dr. and Mrs. Louis E. Wolferz Collection, 26 energetic strokes, all leaning the same way to indicate the direction of
February 1983, lot 220 the prevailing wind, and never a single stroke smudged, fudged or less
than dynamic.
Exhibited:
International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, New York, 5-9 For two other examples, both dated to the following year, 1892, and
November 2013, no.18 also painted with similar landscape scenes, see Sotheby’s, New York,
The Joe Grimberg Collection of Chinees Snuff Bottles, 14 September
2010, lot 33 and Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang,
A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Mary and George Bloch
Collection, Vol 4, Part 1, pp. 178-180, no. 499.
THE MANFRED ARNOLD COLLECTION OF CHINESE SNUFF BOTTLES | 13