SIGNED MA SHAOXUAN, DATED DINGYOU YEAR (1897)

Details

AN UNUSUAL INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
SIGNED MA SHAOXUAN, DATED DINGYOU YEAR (1897)
The bottle is decorated on one side with a figure in a sampan fishing within a mountainous landscape interspersed with a few huts. The reverse has a long inscription which incorporates the date, first month of dingyou, and the poem Lou Shi Ming ('A Eulogy On My Humble Abode'), followed by the name and seal of the artist.
2 ½ in. (6.4 cm.) high

Provenance

Robert Kleiner, London, 2007.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 4647.

Special notice

This lot is offered without reserve.

Lot Essay

Lou Shi Ming is a well-known poem by the Tang-dynasty poet Liu Yuxi (772-842) describing the joy of maintaining a cultured and refined spiritual life while living in a simple dwelling. For more discussion on the inside-painted snuff bottles by Ma Shaoxuan with the same subject and the translation of the excerpt seen on this present bottle (with an additional line, which can be translated as 'My companions are the most learned; there is not a single friend unversed in letters'), please see lot 323 in this catalogue.

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