Bottle ID: 00395

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SUN XINGWU, HOUSE, FIGURES W/MOUNTAINOUS LANDSCAPE

Date: 1899

Height: 63 mm

Glass, ink and watercolors, of rectangular form with rounded shoulders, painted on the inside with a dawn scene of an official's temporary residence set amongst low sloping mountains and pine with two figures in conversation while a farmer passes by laden with his crop; the reverse with a similar scene of a fortified dwelling set in mountainous landscape with a figure on a mule about to cross a bridge, his attendant walking behind; the inscription on one side reading:  'A cock crows in the moonlight at the grass-thatched shed, Someone's footprints in the frost on the plank bridge', dated 'winter month in yihai year, 1899', and signed 'Made by Sun Xingwu' with illegible seals.

Similar Examples:

Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang.  The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle - The J & J Collection, 1993, Vol. II, p. 725, no. 444.
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. 345-347, no. 568.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.
The Monimar Collection
Sotheby's, London, May 6, 1986, lot 359

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

Christie's, St. James's, London, June 1996
Annual Convention ICSBS Hong Kong, October 1996

Published:

Lawrence, Clare.  Miniature Masterpieces from the Middle Kingdom - The Monimar Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1996, pp. 302-303, no. 145.61.

Little is known about Sun Xingwu (1894-1900).  In the seven years of his painting (taken from surviving dated bottles), he painted almost one hundred bottles.  Beijing is given on some of the examples as the location of his studio, and he almost certainly would have known both Zhou Leyuan and Ma Shaoxuan whose styles are evident in Sun's work.  Nine, of what are clearly Sun's bottles, bear the signature of Zhou Leyuan and one has Ma Shaoxuan's signature, usually with specious dates and presumably these examples were painted with a spurious signature as a sign of respect for his colleagues.  Although Sun was a talented artist, he was nevertheless painting commercially, and his work can be repetitive and somewhat mundane at times.  One of his favorite subjects, and one which he painted excellently, more than once, is the scene above - that of the village coming to life in the early morning.  The inscription is taken from the poem "Taking an Early Departure on Mount Shang" by the Tang poet, Weng Tingyun and describes the activities of the village and the poet's desire for his home.  The four characters on one of the buildings read shihuan xingtai indicating that the residence is a transient one for its inhabitants.  The Crane bottle, with its date of 1899, helps in the dating of an undated bottle by Sun Xingwu of a very similar scene with the same inscription in the Bloch Collection (no. 568 cited above).

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