Lot 103

Lot 103
Treasury 4, no.629 (‘A Festival of Light’)
HK$193,750

An inside-painted glass 'Lantern Festival' snuff bottle

Glass, ink, and watercolours; with a slightly concave lip, and recessed convex foot surrounded by a protruding flattened footrim; painted on one main side with six children playing with lanterns of various shapes, the other main side inscribed in regular script with a poem, preceded by the dedication ‘For the approval of Zhusan, an honourable elder’, and followed by ‘Executed at the capital and presented by his junior, Ma Shaoxian’, with one seal of the artist, Shao, in negative seal script
Ma Shaoxian, Beijing, 1933–1940
Height: 6.42 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.7/1.88 cm
Stopper: coral; vinyl collar

Provenance:
Arts of China, Hong Kong (1985)

Published:
Treasury 4, no.629

Exhibited:
Christie’s, London, 1999

This bottle is probably from the end of Ma Shaoxian’s career. The style here is his later style, and the impressive calligraphy also suggests many years of practising.

This is one of the unusual occasions where an artist in this medium uses the humble form di (literally ‘younger brother’) in addressing someone, and we may assume that the bottle was to be presented by Shaoxian to Zhusan, whoever he may have been. It might have been a commission, or presented as a gift. There was a businessman in Beijing before and after the founding of the People’s Republic named Ma Zhusan; he was a Muslim and may have been related to Ma Shaoxian (but not necessarily as a brother, for the terms ‘older brother’ and ‘younger brother’ are routinely used to express respect and humility, not literal relationship). There are many other individuals with the name or courtesy name Zhusan, however.

The poem here reads:

Clouds are thin, the breeze is light, and it is almost noon.
Aside the flowers, following the willows, I cross the river in front.
The people of these times don’t know the happiness in my heart,
They’ll say that I’m goofing off, mimicking the young.

This heptasyllabic poem was written by Cheng Hao (1032–1085), a well-known Northern Song poet, philosopher, and educator, and is entitled ‘A Random Composition on a Spring Day’.