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中文
Bottle ID: 00382
DING ERZHONG, THREE SCHOLARS ON MULES, LANDSCAPE & SCRIPTS
Date: August 17 - September 15, 1898
Height: 56 mm
Glass, ink and watercolors, of rectangular form with sloping shoulders, painted on the inside with, on one side, a selection of tile-ends and bricks with molded inscriptions on them from the Han and Wei dynasties, inscribed above: 'Autumn of the year wuxu, Seventh Month (August 17-September 15, 1898), casually imitating the texts on fragments of bricks and broken tiles. Sketched at my low window at the Mountain Retreat of Seventeen Prunus Trees In Flower', signed Luhe, Ding Erzhong with three seals of the artist; and on the other side with three scholars on mules traveling in a mountainous autumn landscape beneath trees, massive rocks and floating clouds, inscribed: 'Offered for the criticism of second older brother, Rongzhai, his eminence Mei, [by] Erzhong'.
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 2, pp. 318-319, no. 557.
Sotheby's, Hong Kong, October 30, 2000, lot 638, The Guo'an Collection.
Kleiner, Robert. Chinese Snuff Bottles - The White Wings Collection, 1997, p. 244, no. 168.
Sotheby's, New York, September 14, 2010, lot 35, The Joe Grimberg Collection.
Provenance:
Hugh Moss Ltd.
Robert Hall
Exhibited:
Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007
Erzhong is the personal name of Ding Shanyu (1865-1935) whose art name was Luhe. Most of his bottles are signed with simply the personal name Erzhong.
As with all of Ding Erzhong's works, this painting stands alone. Although he has done other collections of ancient documents and tile-ends as a subject, this composition is unique as is the landscape. It is one of Ding's great masterpieces which, under a magnifying glass, comes alive as a masterly painting regardless of its medium. The mounted figures with the landscape and the trees through which they pass are faultlessly painted with extraordinary brushwork for so restricting a medium. It is also in superb condition, unlike a number of Ding's bottles which were essentially painted for subsequent use.
While Ding Erzhong is justifiably recognized as one of the great masters of the inside painting world, his status as a true literatus with a scholarly life-style has been built up out of all proportion. Ding was a painter, a calligrapher, a seal carver, a bamboo carver and a painter of bottles in the late nineteenth century and as such would have become commercial, accepting payment for his work, despite whatever leanings he had to the contrary. The acknowledgement of this does not denigrate, in any way, the pure artistry of his work.