Page 44 - Bloch-4

Glass, ink and water-colours; with a concave lip and recessed, convex oval foot surrounded by a protruding, rounded oval footrim; painted on one main side with a landscape consisting of various rocky outcrops set in an expanse of water, the foreground with an elaborate structure that may be the gateway to a temple set on the shore, with a group of four blossoming trees in the foreground, inscribed in draft script lExecuted by] Erzhong, [alias Shang]yu, for the elegant judgment of Xiaofang, the honourable

Surveillance Commissioner,' with one seal of the artist, Erzhong, in negative seal script, the other main side with two cranes on a rocky outcrop beside the trunk of an ancient pine tree with blossoming branches at its base and peonies growing in the foreground,

inscribed in draft script 'Painted in the eleventh month of the year jihai by Erzhong,' with one seal of the artist, Ding, in negative regular script

Rarely do we find a Ding Erzhong painting in studio condition, although many in this collection come close. The only indication that this bottle was ever filled with snuff is to be found in the white peonies. With both Zhou Leyuan and Ding Erzhong, these flowers were often painted with the thinnest washes of white which were then bled with thicker white and a purplish-pink to give the impression of separate petals and variation in the colours. Where the thinnest washes were left, they are the weakest washes used in the medium and rarely survived many years of contact with snuff. It matters very little in the way we view our bottles today, empty of snuff and carefully cleaned out, since the very pale washes of white look no different from the frosted

Exhibited:

Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, October 1987

Creditanstalt, Vienna, May€June 1993