Page 24 - September 21 2021 Curtis collections snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

616
AN INSIDE-PAINTED ‘NIGHT-SCENE’ GLASS BOTTLE
Ma Shaoxuan, 1897
Of rounded rectangular shape, the interior glass buffed to a misty finish
to highlight the extremely well-painted night-time scene on one main
face with a scholar reading by candlelight at his desk, a boy attendant
on hand, in a small pavilion beneath pine and a full moon and near
bamboo and other trees, the other with a forty-character inscription
preceded by the cyclical date dingyou and followed by the signature
and painted seal.
2 7/16in (6.1cm) high, stopper

$3,000 - 5,000

1897年 馬少宣 玻璃內畫人物詩文鼻煙壺

For an undated bottle with the same scene of Ouyang Xiu reading
by candlelight, see Michael C. Hughes, The Chester Beatty Library,
Dublin, Chinese Snuff Bottles, Baltimore, 2009, pp. 264-265, no. 206.
Another dated to 1895 is illustrated by 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. 28, where the theme
is fully discussed. The reverse side of our bottle has the identical
inscription to the Hui bottle but it is laid out slightly differently. The
inscription is taken from the essay Qiusheng fu, ‘Ode to Autumn
Sounds’, written by the Northern Song dynasty writer Ouyang Xiu
(1007-1072), which is depicted to the other side.

22 | BONHAMS