Page 16 - September 21 2021 MAnfred Arnold Collection snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

406
AN INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS BOTTLE Much has been written about Zhou Leyuan who is widely
Zhou Leyuan acknowledged as the single most influential artist working in the inside-
Signed and dated renchen year corresponding to 1892 painted medium. Zhou founded the popular Beijing School of painting.
Painted with a continuous mountain river landscape with boats, figures Every artist of the first phase of the school owes a debt to him and
and buildings; stopper. they include Ding Erzhong, Ma Shaoxuan, Ye Zhongsan, Ziyizi, Sun
2 1/8in (5.5cm) high Xingwu and Yan Yutian amongst others.

$4,000 - 6,000 According to Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury
of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol.
壬辰年（1892） 周樂元 玻璃内畫山水人物鼻煙壺 4, part 1, Inside Painted, Hong Kong, 2000, p. 93, no. 465, his earliest
dated bottle, with calligraphy only, rather than painting, is dated 1879.
Provenance: The majority of his dated bottles, however, seem to span the years
A Private Collection, Connecticut 1881 until 1893, making this a late work. For further discussion of
Michael C. Hughes LLC, New York, 4 December 2013 his work and an earlier bottle, dated 1884, and painted with a similar
scene but in a darker palette, see Hughes, The Chester Beatty Library,
Dublin, Chinese Snuff Bottles, Baltimore, 2009, pp. 256-257, no. 198.

For an inside-painted smoky-crystal example with birds flying amidst
trees see Christie’s, New York, The Meriem Collection, 19 September
2007, lot 609 and another glass example, also dated 1892, sold at
Bonhams, New York, 9 September 2019, lot 104. A landscape crystal
bottle of the same year was also sold at Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, The
Mary and George Bloch Collection, Part IX, lot 25.

14 | BONHAMS