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Lot Essay
The painting of this bottle is stylistically close to that of the first master of the Middle school, Zhou Leyuan, whose favorite subjects were landscapes in the classical style.
This seal of the artist, huayin, appears only on his works from the early years. After 1900, he no longer used it, reverting to the simple yin (seal) which continued in use by the family into the mid-twentieth century.
See another inside-painted glass snuff bottle from Ye Zhongsan from 1897 with identical decoration but of different shape, illustrated by Moss, Graham, Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle. The J & J Collection, p.709, pl.433. On the catalogue note, the authors show how the design evolved in 1898 to include a tree wrapped around the bottle. This explains the small differences between the example illustrated and the current bottle.
This seal of the artist, huayin, appears only on his works from the early years. After 1900, he no longer used it, reverting to the simple yin (seal) which continued in use by the family into the mid-twentieth century.
See another inside-painted glass snuff bottle from Ye Zhongsan from 1897 with identical decoration but of different shape, illustrated by Moss, Graham, Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle. The J & J Collection, p.709, pl.433. On the catalogue note, the authors show how the design evolved in 1898 to include a tree wrapped around the bottle. This explains the small differences between the example illustrated and the current bottle.