Page 104 - The Ruth and Carl Barron Collection of Fine Chinese Snuff Bottles: Part I

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A FINELY ENAMELED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
ATTRIBUTED TO YE BENQI OR WANG XISAN, CIRCA 1963-1965

The opaque white glass bottle is of somewhat irregular, circular from with a raised ridge in the
center on either side, fnely painted on one side with two branches bearing pomegranates and
a blossom and on the other with two branches of peaches and peonies. The base is incised with
an apocryphal Qianlong mark.
2º in. (5.7 cm.) high, metal stopper

$12,000-16,000

PROVENANCE:

SB Collection, England.
Robert Hall, London, 2011.
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd., Hong Kong Kong, 2011.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 5237.

LITERATURE:

Robert Hall, The SB Collection, Chinese Snuff Bottles XV, London, 2011, no. 90.

Born in 1938, Wang Xisan (Wang Ruicheng) was the star pupil of Ye Bengqi, the son of Ye Zhongsan,
the artist who revitalized the Beijing school of painting in the late 1950s. Ye Bengqi took up the art
of enameling again in the early 1960s to teach Wang Xisan, and it is sometimes diffcult with earlier
Wang Xisan bottles to distinguish them from his teacher’s, or in some cases, from earlier Qianlong
examples. The two-character reign mark in seal script seen on the present bottle was only used on
enameled wares in the early 1960s.
For a discussion on the artist Wang Xisan see Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff
Bottles, the Mary and George Bloch Collection, Volume 6, Part 1, Hong Kong, 2008, pp. 273-275.
The authors note, “As an artistic genius, Wang rapidly became one of the fnest of all enamellers,
both artistically and technically, that China has ever produced.” The artist paints glass snuff bottles
and interior-painted snuff bottles, showing great artistry in both. The present example is typical of the
quality of his painting on glass. Generally executed in famille rose enamels with foral subjects beneath
a decorative border, his works echo the best enameled bottles produced at the imperial workshops
during the reign of the Qianlong emperor.

1963-1965年前後 （傳）葉菶祺或王習三 玻璃畫琺瑯長壽富貴圖鼻煙壺

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