Lot 165
Treasury 4, no. 599 (‘Elegant Amusement in Spring’)
HK$200,000

Glass, ink, and watercolours; with a concave lip and recessed convex foot surrounded by a protruding rounded footrim; painted on one main side with two swallows flying past a bare willow standing beneath which is a herd boy, holding his hat under his arm and leaning on his water buffalo, the other main side inscribed with two poetic compositions, one in regular script, the other in clerical script, preceded by a dedication, ‘For the elegant amusement of Rennian, an honourable elder acquaintance’, and followed by the signature ‘Ma Guangjia, [alias] the humble Shaoxuan’, both in regular script, with one seal of the artist, Shaoxuan, in negative seal script
Ma Shaoxuan, Studio for Listening to the Qin, Ox Street district, Beijing, 1900–1930
Height: 5.9 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.51/1.61 cm
Stopper: jadeite; vinyl collar

Provenance:
Sotheby’s, London, 11 October 1974, lot 46
Hugh M. Moss Ltd. (1974 or 1975)
Jack Rose
Sotheby’s, London, 6 June 1988, lot 283

Published:
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 338
Treasury 4, no. 599

Exhibited:
Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
National Museum, Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
Christie's, London, 1999

Although the calligraphy here is rather weaker than usual, the painting is another of Ma Shaoxuan’s rarer subjects, superbly painted and with brushwork that remains impressive even under magnification, while so many of the more repetitive, decorative works from his studio do not.

Another version of this rare subject, dated 1900, was sold at Sotheby’s, London, 6 June 1988, lot 283. As a general rule, it seems likely that with the rarer subjects, if one is dated and another not, we may assume that they were made at approximately the same time. It is far more likely that Ma would have been inspired or commissioned to do another version soon after the first rather than decades later, although we cannot rule that out entirely. The existence of another bottle of this subject dated 1900 suggests that this one was done about the same time or soon afterwards. We have left a broader dating range in case we are wrong in this assumption and it is later. We have very few bottles from his last years from which to judge, but there is a painting of a cockerel, hen, and three chicks from the Michael Kaynes Collection that is inscribed with the same poem in clerical script in a very similar style; it is dated 1926.

The combination of a bare willow and swallows always indicates the spring season. The couplet written in regular script is in seven-syllable lines and reads

By a stream on the Cold Meal Festival, a pair of swallows flies;
Beyond the willows in the setting sun, a single ox is there.

The Cold Meal Festival falls on the 105th day after the winter solstice in the previous year; in the Qing dynasty, it was moved to the day after the Qingming Festival and became an extension of that tomb-sweeping holiday. The Cold Meal Festival probably originated in the fact that the coming of spring meant a change in fuel sources, at which point all fires were extinguished for a day. We do not know the source of this couplet, but given the fact that the festival declined in importance after the Tang dynasty, it may be a Tang poem or a poem meant to have a Tang flavour.

The poem in clerical script, which is in four-syllable lines, reads

[Like] a rustic cottage in a luxuriant grove,
[Or] the essence of flowers and foliage,
[If one] discards [the notion of] outward resemblance,
The bright moon [could well have been these] in its former lives.

The latter poem is also part of the inscription on Sale 3, lot 51, by Ma Shaoxuan or a family member. As noted there, these lines were taken from different poems in the series Ershisi shipin (‘Twenty-four Categories of Poetry’) by Sikong Tu (837–908) and patched together to form a new one.

Here Ma signs with his zi, or adopted given name, Guangjia. It appeared also on a portrait bottle, Sale 4, lot 211, among others.

This is not the Sotheby’s sale catalogue. This is a product of Hugh Moss for the purposes of this website. For the catalogue details please refer to Sotheby’s website or request a copy of a printed sale catalogue from Sotheby’s.