Bottle ID: 00352

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ZHOU LEYUAN, LANDSCAPE SCENE W/BIRDS ON A PINE TREE

Date: 1892

Height: 62 mm

Crystal, ink and watercolors, of very well-hollowed rectangular form with sloping shoulders, painted on the inside with a continuous landscape scene with a pair of swallows and a brace of pheasants perched on a pine tree, beside a convoluted rocky bank with grasses and flowering peonies, inscribed 'Sketched at the Lotus Root Fragrance Studio by Zhou Leyuan in the second month of Spring, of the year renchen, 1892', with one seal Yuan yin.

Similar Examples:

Kleiner, Robert. Chinese Snuff Bottles - The White Wings Collection, 1997,
p. 255, no. 176.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol. 4, Part 1, pp. 175-177, no. 498.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss Ltd.

Exhibited:
 

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

Zhou Leyuan did not use a copybook, unlike Ye Zhongsan and Ma Shaoxuan, with the consequence that his compositions tended to be freer and livelier even when, as a commercial artist, he repeated the same subject matter. This is a standard, but highly appealing subject for his later years, although one of the rarer ones, enhanced by the fine quality crystal bottle and the unusual breadth of the subject in this case which is more complex, spread over a wider area and with more birds than is usual. Painted within the last two years of his career, the calligraphy reflects a less broad, more angular style than he used in his early years. It is evident that Zhou's painting style at this time was a huge influence on both Ye Zhongsan and Ma Shaoxuan, although it is Ye's work that more steadfastly owes its allegiance to Zhou's painting. Many of the bottles painted by Ye Zhongsan with Zhou's signatures are accompanied by the date 1892, perhaps as a tribute to Zhou in his later years. Unlike Meng Zishou, Zhou Leyuan used the same studio name, The Lotus-root Fragrance Studio (Ouxiang zhai) throughout his career, except for a few months in the summer of 1891 when an alternative name appears, The Studio of Thirty-six Documents (Sanshiliushu zhai). The Lotus-root Fragrance Studio was located at Xuenwu Men in Xuannan, southwest Beijing, near the Ox Street district - the Muslim quarter of the Capital.

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