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Bottle ID: 00286
YE ZHONGSAN, FIGURES IN LANDSCAPE & INSCRIPTION
Date: circa 1900
Height: 58 mm
Smoky crystal, ink and watercolors, very well-hollowed of rounded rectangular form, painted on the inside with, on one side a lone figure in a pavilion on a pine promontory beneath a signature and inscription 'Made in the renchen year on an autumn day in the Capital at the Fragrant Lotus Root Studio, Zhou Leyuan'; the reverse with a figure wearing a straw cloak punting under willow trees in a windswept riverscape, with one seal Yuan Yin.
Attributed to Ye Zhongsan.
Similar Examples:
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2000, Vol. 4, Part I, pp. 153-156, no. 490 and pp. 179-180, no. 499.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2000, Vol. 4, Part 2, pp. 546-547, no. 651.
Provenance:
Clare Lawrence Ltd.
Christie's, New York, September 21, 1995, lot 337
Exhibited:
Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007
Zhou Leyuan painted this scene with variations a number of times, and as such, at first glance this bottle may be assumed to be authentic. A closer examination of it, however, lends to the view that it was Ye Zhongsan who painted this bottle, and signed it with Zhou Leyuan's studio name. What is more intriguing is that this appears to be a direct copy of a bottle in the Bloch Collection, No. 499, right down to the use of an older smoky crystal bottle and a date to the same year of execution. However, comparing the two signatures is conclusive proof that the Crane bottle is not by Zhou.
After moving to Hengshui in 1977, Wang Xisan was able to visit the widows of Ye Shaofeng and Ye Bengqi as well as two of the sons of Ye Zhongsan, at which time they had an emotional reunion. As a parting gift, Wang Xisan received from them an album of sketches for inside painted bottles by Ye Zhongsan. This is reprinted in Inkplay in Microcosm (Hui, Humphrey, Lai Suk Yee and Peter Y. K. Lam, Inkplay in Microcosm, Inside-painted Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Humphrey K. F. Hui Collection, 2002, pp. 50 -51). Intriguingly an examination of Leaf I reveals that even in the sketch, which is comparable in design to this bottle, Ye Zhongsan signs his work Zhou Leyuan. That he does this in his initial sketch indicates Ye's intent to follow the style of Zhou in his painting and acknowledge him with respect as the master of the genre. That he uses Zhou's name without attempting to disguise the difference in the two signatures is further evidence of this intent.
According to Ye Bengqi, not just Ye Zhongsan but also his sons, would copy Zhou's classic landscapes. A very similar landscape in a bottle mysteriously signed "completed by Ping Bo'an" (Bloch No. 651) is attributed by Moss, Graham, and Tsang to the Ye family. With a date of 1928, it is difficult to identify which member of the Ye family might have painted that bottle. The Crane bottle, however, is more readily attributable to Ye Zhongsan, and not to his sons because of the sketch in the album now belonging to Wang Xisan.