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Lot Essay
The poem may be translated as:
The green river, red leaves and the veiled mountain are showing signs of autumn;
One feels free under the howling moon and whispering wind;
I was repeatedly sober, then drunk, on the boat today;
A rank at last after a decade under the deep sea.
The monkey (hou) and wasps (feng) form the rebus, daidai fenghou (A nobleman's rank for every generation), which is reinforced by the adjacent four-character inscription.
While the bottle bears Ma Shaoxuan's signature, both his elder brother and his nephew, Ma Shaoxian, worked with him and often produced works under his name. Further research is needed to distinguish between the three different hands at present, but a range of his more standard, decorative works may have come from the hands of his studio assistants. See Moss, Graham and Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, nos. 579 and 626, for a discussion of Ma Shaoxuan's career.
The green river, red leaves and the veiled mountain are showing signs of autumn;
One feels free under the howling moon and whispering wind;
I was repeatedly sober, then drunk, on the boat today;
A rank at last after a decade under the deep sea.
The monkey (hou) and wasps (feng) form the rebus, daidai fenghou (A nobleman's rank for every generation), which is reinforced by the adjacent four-character inscription.
While the bottle bears Ma Shaoxuan's signature, both his elder brother and his nephew, Ma Shaoxian, worked with him and often produced works under his name. Further research is needed to distinguish between the three different hands at present, but a range of his more standard, decorative works may have come from the hands of his studio assistants. See Moss, Graham and Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, nos. 579 and 626, for a discussion of Ma Shaoxuan's career.