Footnotes

• Treasury 7, no. 1481
  
  
  刻銘竹根豆莢鼻煙壺
  潤之、小舟（張保樸？）刻銘，1760～1920（壺，1730～1850）
  
  Backup
  
  Bamboo; a double bottle, each container carved in the form of a pea pod, with a severed branch, the upper end of which forms the stopper to one container, growing with leaves, tendrils, and a third much smaller pod, with a katydid crawling on one leaf and a butterfly flying between the larger pod and a leaf, engraved in clerical script with a short but obscure passage that appears to praise the olfactory acuity of the person to whom this vessel is being presented, followed in a slightly cursive, regular script with 'Composed by the honourable elder brother Runzhi; engraved by Xiaozhou'
  Bottle: 1730–1850
  Inscription: Runzhi and Xiaozhou (possibly Zhang Baopu), 1760–1920
  Height: 10.95 cm. (including original stopper)
  Mouths: 6.5 and 4.4 cm
  Stoppers: bamboo, one carved as the upper end of the severed branch of the main decoration, the other in the form of a leafy stalk, both with integral corks and spoons; both original
  Condition: two small chips in slightly raised lip of larger container; very thin crack running through most of the narrow sides, visible under close inspection but not obtrusive; normal softening of the surface detail through use, with accompanying patination; both original bamboo spoons survive, but have been reattached after having been broken off at some time. General relative condition: very good
  Lot 3 Provenance:
  Unidentified dealer, Beijing, (1924)
  Ko Collection (1987)
  Published:
  Arts of Asia, September-October 1990, p. 92
  Kleiner 1987, no. 200
  Illustrated London News, Summer 1990, Summer 1990, p. 49
  Orient Express Magazine, Summer 1990, p. 49
  Prestige, Summer 1990, p. 49
  Kleiner 1995, no. 339
  Chen Tao 2002, p. 56, fig. 94
  Treasury 7, no. 1481
  Exhibited:
  Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, October 1987
  Creditanstalt, Vienna, May-June 1993
  British Museum, London, June-October 1995
  Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July-November 1997
  
  Commentary
  This is one of the most spectacular of all bamboo snuff bottles and would qualify as such even without the additional inscriptions. It is carved from the solid, subterranean mass discussed under Treasury 7, no. 1478 and of which Treasury 7, no. 1480 is another example. Here, however, the piece of material has been inverted from the way it grew in order to make the bottle; the clusters of small roots are concentrated in the upper area of the bottle while the burgeoning nodes form the base (see discussion under Treasury 7, no. 1480). The material itself is delightful and well used, and the design concept artistically brilliant. That it retains both its original stoppers and spoons is a considerable bonus, although with astonishing foresight, the carver left the upper area of the severed branch on the bottle ambiguous, so that without the stopper it would not be glaringly obvious that it was missing although once it is in place the design is obviously complete and greatly enhanced by the gnarled, upper end of the severed branch. Perhaps the maker knew the fate of so many stoppers eventually separated from their original bottles given time.
  
  The inscription is difficult to parse, but one interpretation would give:
  
  The nose's 'sight' is penetrating and numinous;
  And so it receives pair after pair:
  [fish with] eyes abreast and the beans of love.
  
  Fish with both eyes on one side of their heads (like sole, plaice, and similar fish) were thought by the Chinese to always swim in pairs so as to compensate for their supposedly incomplete field of vision; hence, they are symbolic of eternal love. The beans of love are the red seeds of the Abrus precatorius, which grows in southern China. One story has it that they sprung from the tears shed by a woman waiting for her husband to return home. The reference to the nose's 'sight' is more opaque. This synæsthetic expression appears in several Song dynasty poems in connection with various subtle scents, but the phrase biguan also means simply 'nostrils'. Obviously, the first line has something to do with snuff or someone's ability to discriminate the subtleties of snuff, and the symbols of conjugal faithfulness are related to the double form of the bottle. Whatever the connection between the nose and the form, the inscription must have been intended for this particular bottle rather than borrowed from another source. Whether 'elder brother Runzhi' actually engraved the inscription he composed or wrote an exemplar for Xiaozhou ("Little boat") to carve into the bottle, Runzhi clearly had a personal connection to the piece.
  
  This is an example of a bottle that may have inspired a scholar, or scholars, to add an inscription many years after it was produced. The bottle, judged independently, could have been made in the eighteenth century, or the first half of the nineteenth, whereas the additional inscriptions, and the co-operation of two artists in adding them, is more typical of the nineteenth century and, without further information of the identities of the participants, could have been added at any time during the later-Qing, or even the early-republican period. In that respect, the only thing we can be sure of is that they were not added after 1924, when the bottle was acquired in Beijing for the Ko Collection. The most likely time for their addition, however, is the nineteenth century.
  
  Regardless of the precise, art-historical details of the co-operation, it seems appropriate that two people were involved given the double form of the bottle, the paired insects, and the reference to pair-eyed fish and the love seeds (two are implied, because of the association between couples).
  The inscription seems to have been composed by Runzhi and engraved by Xiaozhou. Xiaozhou's characters are of very high quality; if he didn't carefully copy stroke-by-stroke from a model that had been prepared for him, both he and Runzhi must have been scholarly individuals. The bottle itself seems to have been made in the Qianlong-to-Daoguang period, but the inscription must have been added after the Xianfeng era; it was in the closing years of the Qing and the early Republican era that the fashion for engraving on old bottles was at its height, often with three individuals involved. In any case, this inscription was made before 1924, when the bottle entered the Ko Collection.
  We have found the following individuals who used the name Xiaozhou and are the most likely to have been in a position to make this inscription. Some peripheral information is omitted here, but is in the Chinese version of this web page for the convenience of those who wish to push the research further along.
  
  
  Xu Ji
  1720～1793；native of Kunshan, medical expertise, excellent in literature, calligraphy, and painting
  Ma Yiping 1997, pp. 97～98.
  
  Zhang Baopu
  Dates unknown; native of Nanjing, skilled in seal cutting
  Yu Jianhua 1981, p. 886.
  
  Huang Yuheng
  1777～1820； Native of Guangdong, 1811 jinshi; served in Zhejiang, skilled in calligraphy and painting
  Nanxiong 1992, p. 251; Xie Wenyong 1985, p. 194.
  
  Huang Zhaokui
  Dates unknown; native of Dantu, skilled in calligraphy and painting, expert in clerical script
  Nanjing Normal University 1994, pp. 321–322.
  
  We once suggested that Xiaozhou was Zhang Baopu, but in a previous publication misidentified his native place. If our thesis regarding the timing of the literati enthusiasm for engraving snuff bottles is correct, Xu Ji and Huang Yuheng would appear to have lived a little too early. But since the dates of Zhang Baopu and Huang Zhaokui are still unknown, more research is needed.
  
  There is no dearth of people who used the name Runzhi. Out of twenty-some individuals from the mid-Qing to the Republican period, we have identified the following men as the most likely candidates for 'our' Runzhi. (Mao Zedong is perhaps the most famous Runzhi, and he was from bamboo-rich Hunan, but whether he would have had an opportunity as a young man to compose an inscription for a bamboo snuff bottle is unclear; we have elected to exclude him for now.)
  
  Chen Shihua
  1714～1779; an avid collector of calligraphy and paintings
  Standard dictionaries of art figures
  
  Wu Yun
  1790 jinshi; native of Suzhou, skilled calligrapher. Lin Zexu wrote of him that 'at the age of 94, he was fully aware and robust, still writing fly-head characters by lamplight'
  Chen Juyuan 2000, p. 409
  
  Zhai Shufang
  1832 juren
  
  Wang Ze
  Native of Jintang, Sichuan, widely learned, excellent in calligraphy, passed district examination in 1849
  Yu Jianhua 1981, p. 133
  
  Ding Renze
  Native of Ninghuai, county magistrate of Tongshan around 1887, skilled in poetry and writing
  Ma Changhua 1995, p. 232; Anhui fuxian zhi 1998, pp. 432–433
  
  Gan Yu
  1823～1896; native of Yaozhou, known for his filial piety
  Li Yiping 2005, p. 356; Yu Jianhua 1981, p. 168
  
  Tang Shishu
  1831～1902; native of Changzhou, skilled at painting flowers and writing colophons
  Standard dictionaries of art figures
  
  Wu Dinglu
  Native of Suzhou, famous Jiangnan painter
  Yu Jianhua 1981, p. 285
  小舟刻磨相思豆
  
  竹根；雙聯豆莢形壺，雕大小四個豆莢、葉子、卷鬚、一隻蝴蝶、一隻螽斯，大的一豆莢上刻著"鼻觀通靈以受雙雙比目相思豆"，其下刻"潤之仁兄自題，小舟刻"
  
  壺：1730～1850
  銘刻：潤之、小舟（張保樸？），1760～1920
  帶蓋高：10.95 厘米
  口：6.5 、4.4 厘米
  蓋：竹；一個雕剪斷的藤條，另一個雕帶葉的豆柄；塞、匙與蓋為一體；原件
  狀態敘述：大壺微凸起的唇有兩小疵點；腹兩側有裂縫，用放大鏡才能辨認， 並不引人注目，細鏤處有普通的磨耗和變色；兩根竹匙存，是曾經折斷而復置的；一般相對的狀況：良好
  
  來源：
  未知來源，北京， 1924
  克立德珍藏 (1987)
  
  文獻：
  Arts of Asia, September–October 1990, 頁92
  Kleiner 1987, 編號200
  Illustrated London News, Summer 1990, p. 49
  Orient Express Magazine, Summer 1990, p. 49
  Prestige, Summer 1990, p. 49
  Kleiner 1995, 編號339
  陳韜，《鑒識鼻煙壺》，頁 56, 圖 94
  Treasury 7, 編號1481
  
  展覽：
  Sydney L. Moss Ltd, 倫敦, 1987年10 月
  Creditanstalt, 維也納, 1993年5月～6月
  大英博物館, 倫敦, 1995年6月～10月
  Israel Museum, 耶路撒冷, 1997年7月～11月
  
  說明：
  這是雕刻顛倒的根狀莖而成的，節在下，細根的痕跡在上。材料本身悅目，加上精巧的修飾和耐人咀嚼的題文，實在是竹材鼻煙壺中相當驚人的。雖然藤條形的蓋和壺上的藤條很巧妙地連接，洞曉世故的工匠知道鼻煙壺失掉原來的蓋並沒甚麼稀罕，他安排好，這把蓋不見了的話，對整個的藝術效果的損毀不太大。不過，兩把蓋都保存下來，亦屬幸事。
  
  銘刻《鼻觀通靈以受雙雙比目相思豆》有點費解，今姑且釋意為"你的嗅覺很靈敏，因此我給你這個豆莢形煙壺"。"受"通授。相思豆即相思子，學名Abrus precatorius. 其他名稱：紅豆、雞母珠、鬼眼子等，分佈於臺灣～雲南一帶。"雙雙比目"可能是指雕呈的四個莢果或者可以裝鼻煙的兩個，或是指莢裏想象的種子（假使是以雙數的；實際的相思子有1～6種子）。
  
  銘文好像是潤之作的，小舟刻的。小舟字刻得不錯，假如他不是一筆一筆地臨摹潤之寫的標本，他們兩個都可能是有學問的人物。煙壺本身似乎是乾隆～道光時期作的，而銘文大概是咸豐以後刻的。清末民國初，文人有舊壺刻新銘的風尚，常常是兩三個人一起製作的。我們估計此銘是十九世紀刻上的，但無論如何，肯定是民國13 年入克立德珍藏以前刻的。
  
  我們索取用別名"小舟"的清人中，下列人最可能具有刻字才能：
  
  徐楫
  1720～1793；崑山人，善醫理，兼工詩文書畫。
  馬一平1997， 頁97～98。
  
  張寶璞
  生卒年不明，南京人，善刻印
  俞劍華1981， 頁 886，引《廣印人傳》
  
  黃玉衡
  1777～1820；廣東人，1811 進士，曾任浙江道監查御史，工書畫
  有《安心竟齋詩集》，失佚
  南雄1992， 頁251； 謝文勇 1985， 頁194。
  
  黃兆奎
  生卒年不明，丹徒人，工書畫，習古隸，晚年隱於鹺官，權通州豐利場篆。
  有《停琴館詩鈔》，失佚
  南京師範大學 1994， 頁321～322。
  
  以前，我們認為小舟是張寶璞，但誤以為他是嘉定人。如果我們對文人刻煙壺習俗歷史進展的想法是對的，徐楫與黃玉衡在世太早，而張寶璞與黃兆奎生卒年都不明，待考。
  
  字潤之的，不乏其人。在我們索取活在清中期～民國初的二十多人當中，我們推測題本煙壺的"潤之仁兄"可能隱藏在下列人中。（毛澤東字潤之，家鄉也在竹材豐富的湖南，他青年時會不會有給煙壺撰題詞的場合，令人生疑，暫且不列。）
  
  陸時化
  1714～1779， 嗜書畫，購藏及富。
  一般的美術家詞典
  
  吳雲
  1790 進士；蘇州人，工書。
  林則徐跋其書冊曰："年九十四，神明強固，燈下作蠅頭書。"
  陳居淵2000, 頁 409。
  
  翟漱芳
  1832舉人
  有《正聲集》46卷、《仰山堂詩文集》32卷
  
  王澤
  四川金堂人，博學，善書法，1849副魁。
  俞劍華1981， 頁 133，引《益州書畫錄》
  
  丁仁澤
  懷寧人，同治初入淮系集團，1865科舉人，1887前後任銅山知縣，工詩古文辭。
  馬昌華1995， 頁232；安徽府縣志 1998, 頁432～433。
  
  甘雨
  1823～1896， 姚州人，以孝聞。
  有《補過齋遺集》二卷
  李怡苹 2005， 頁 356，俞劍華1981，頁168。
  
  湯世澍
  1831～1902，常州人，工花卉，題識精美。
  一般的美術家詞典
  
  吳汀鷺
  吳縣人，江南名畫師。
  俞劍華1981， 頁285

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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