Page 32 - September 21 2021 MAnfred Arnold Collection snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

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AN INSIDE-PAINTED SMOKY CRYSTAL SNUFF BOTTLE See Ma Zhengsan, Inside-Painted Bottle Artist, Ma Shaoxuan (1867-
Ma Shaoxuan 1939), pp. 47-49, fig. 35, for a similar-shaped crystal bottle from the
Signed and dated dingyou year, corresponding to 1897, Beijing Humphrey Hui Collection and more fully illustrated by Humphrey K.F.
Of flattened tear-drop shape set on a recessed oval base, painted on Hui, Lai Suk Yee and Peter Y.K. Lam, Inkplay in Microcosm, Inside-
one main face with a ram and two goats under a willow tree with the painted Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Humphrey K.F. Hui Collection, Art
sun behind, the reverse includes a twenty-eight-character inscription Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002, no. 36. The
preceded by the date and followed by the signature and seal bottle is dated 1899 and shares part of the same inscription as ours
Shaoxuan; stopper. and is fully translated by the authors.
1 7/8in (4.8cm) high
The subject of three goats (or sheep) and a rising sun was employed
$5,000 - 7,000 in the decorative arts from at least the Ming dynasty; the Xuande
Emperor (1426-35) is known to have executed a painting of the
丁酉年（1897） 馬少宣 煙晶内畫「三羊開泰」圖鼻煙壺 北京 subject, but according to Therese Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings
in Chinese Art, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 2006, p. 146,
Provenance: 6.16.1, did not gain prominence until the Qianlong period.
Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, 3 May 1985, lot 645
No distinction is made in Chinese between sheep and goats, yang,
Exhibited: the collective name for sheep, rams, lambs, ewes, and goats is a
International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, Waldorf Astoria, homophone of yang, the male principle or positive force. Therefore
New York, 5-9 November 2013, no. 59 the depiction of three goats or sheep, sanyang, along with a rising
sun, taiyang form the rebus ‘the new year brings a change of fortune’,
sanyang kaitai.

For another bottle painted with the same subject in glass (rather than
crystal), see Christie’s New York, 18-19 September 2014, lot 1187.
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