Page 36 - September 21 2021 MAnfred Arnold Collection snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

423
A MINIATURE INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE For a lengthy discussion of Ma’s career, see Hugh Moss, Victor
Ma Shaoxuan Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The
Signed, circa 1897-1900 Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol. 4, Part I, Inside Painted, pp.
Painted on one main face with scattered butterflies above flowers and 363-367, no.576, where the authors note that Ma was born in 1867
on the other with a twenty-eight character inscription followed by the to a family of Muslims, originally from Eastern Turkestan, living in the
signature and the seal Shao; stopper. Ox Street (Niujie) district of Beijing. His working career appears to have
1 1/2in (4cm) high spanned between 1895 and 1932. For a very detailed account of the
artists life and oeuvre, see Ma Zhengshan, Inside-Painted Snuff Bottle
$3,000 - 4,000 Artist, Ma Shaoxuan (1867-1939), Baltimore, 1997.

1897-1900 馬少宣 玻璃内畫「歡天喜地」圖配詩文微型鼻煙壺 The earliest recorded subject of Ma’s popular butterflies and flowers
was painted in 1894, he then returned to the subject again and again
Provenance: over his long career. For another example dated 1895, differing in
Kaynes-Klitz Collection the placement of the butterflies, see Christie’s, New York, The Ruth
Robert Kleiner, The Kaynes-Klitz Collection, 15 March 2001 and Carl Barron Collection, Part VI, 12 September 2018, lot 738 and
for another dated 1898 with the same placement but with a color
Literature: variance, see Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, Treasury,
Hugh Moss, Chinese Snuff Bottles, No. 5, p. 16, fig. 2 Vol. 4, Part 2, Inside Painted, Hong Kong, 2000, pp. 385-386, no.
583, which the authors suggest is a family workshop production.
Exhibited:
International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, New York, 5-9 For another butterfly-subject bottle formerly in the Emily Byrne Curtis
November 2013, no. 87 Collection, see Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, Snuff Bottles from the Mary
and George Bloch Collection: Part X, 1 June 2015, lot 92.

34 | BONHAMS