Page 26 - September 21 2021 MAnfred Arnold Collection snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

416
AN INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
Attributed to Ziyizi
Circa 1900-1907
Of rounded rectangular shape with unusually sloping shoulders, one
main face painted in subdued hues with a portrait of a beardless
man (or possibly a youth) wearing a close fitting cap, set within a
dark-ground oval, the opposite side painted with bronze and ceramic
vessels with flowers clustered around a mossy rock, indecipherable
seal below; stopper.
2 5/8in (6.6cm) high

$6,000 - 9,000
1900-1907 傳自怡子 玻璃内畫人物肖像及清供圖鼻煙壺

Provenance:
White Wings Collection
Robert Kleiner, The White Wings Collection, 8 January 1999

Literature:
Robert Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles, The White Wings Collection,
Hong Kong, 1997, pp. 270-271, no. 188

Exhibited:
International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, Waldorf Astoria,
New York, 5-9 November 2013, no. 79

For an example of an almost identical un-deciphered seal on another
Ziyizi bottle, see Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang,
A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles,The Mary and George Bloch
Collection, Vol. 4, Part 2, Inside Painted, Hong Kong, 2000, p. 486,
fig. 6. For a portrait bottle by Ziyizi in which the same format of an oval
medallion with a darker ground to silhouette the sitter, see Moss et. al.
ibid., pp.484-485, no. 624. His earliest bottles show an obvious debt
to Zhou Leyuan and are evidenced here by the reverse side of this
bottle depicting vessels, rockwork and flowers. For another example
with bronze vessels and rockwork on one side, see Humphrey K.F.
Hui, Lai Suk Yee and Peter Y.K. Lam, Inkplay in Microcosm, Inside-
painted Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Humphrey K.F. Hui Collection, Art
Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002, no. 23.

24 | BONHAMS