Page 15 - September 21 2021 Curtis collections snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

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AN INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE no. 573. Both are dated to 1899, a year prior to our example. The
Gui Xianggu, 1900 Bloch example includes an excerpt from the ‘Langting Preface’ which
Of rounded rectangular shape, one main face depicting Huang it is useful to list here (using Emily Byrne Curtis’s translation) as it is the
Chengyen on his donkey with his assistant in a spring landscape one Huang Chengyan intoned as he visited his son-in-law Zhuge Liang
collecting the early prunus blossom below the inscription, date, in ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’. The poem, reads:
signature and seals, the other with two small figures set in a vast
mountainous riverscape with a bridge nearby, dated gengzi, and All night long the north wind blew cold;
signed by the artist. Thick clouds portending snow gather over ten thousand li.
2 7/16in (6.1cm) high, stopper In the vast sky, snow floats in confusion and
Transforms completely the old look of the streams and mountains.
$2,000 - 3,000 Lifting my head to observe the heavens,
I suspect the jade dragons must be in earnest combat.
Their scales falling off in great profusion
1900年 桂香谷 玻璃內畫黃承彥鼻煙壺 In an instant scatter all over the universe.
As I cross the small bridge on the back of a donkey,
Provenance: I sigh in my solitude over the thinness of the plum blossoms.
Lucerne Antiques, Rio de Janerio, September, 1989
According to Moss et. al., ibid, When he tried, Gui was one of the more
Gui Xianggu’s early works reflect the influence Zhou Leyuan’s and accomplished calligraphers among the large group of commercial
especially so in this bottle with its light touch, somewhat out-of- painters who followed Zhou Leyuan into the field. His calligraphy does
keeping with his normal brighter palette. For two other examples not have the elegance or flair of Ding Erzhong or Zhou Leyuan, nor the
depicting the same scene of Huang Chengyan in the more common individuality of Ziyizi, nor yet the absolute control of Ma Shaoxuan at
palette, see Humphrey K.F. Hui, Lai Suk Yee and Peter Y.K. Lam, his best, but it is of a good standard and consistent.
Inkplay in Microcosm, Inside-painted Chinese Snuff Bottles, The
Humphrey K.F. Hui Collection, Art Museum, The Chinese University
of Hong Kong, 2002, no. 110; and Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and
Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Mary and
George Bloch Collection, Vol. 4, Part I, Inside Painted, pp. 357-358,

THE EMILY BYRNE CURTIS COLLECTION OF CHINESE SNUFF BOTTLES | 13