Footnotes

• Treasury 4, no. 445
  
  
  水晶內書鼻煙壺
  壺：1740～1811
  內晝：一如居士，推定為北京作，1802～1811
  
  The Auspicious Faceted Crystal
  
  Flawless crystal and ink; with a flat lip and flat hexagonal foot; inscribed in regular script on the central panel of one main side with an encomium on the snuff bottle and on the central panel of the other with five lines from a rhapsody (fu) on a gathering of immortals by Lü Dongbin (ninth century), followed by the signature Yunfeng and one seal of the artist, Yunfeng, in black ink and positive seal script, the two narrow sides inscribed in regular script with the two parts of a couplet, '[May your] happiness be like the incessantly-flowing water of the Eastern Sea', and '[May you] live as long as the never-ageing pines on the Southern Mountains', the shoulder panels on the main sides inscribed with a single character each, together reading '[May you have] peace and good fortune' (Ping'an jiqing), and the main-side base panels with a similar arrangement of individual characters reading '[May you be granted] both happiness and longevity' (Fushou shuangquan), all in regular script, the regular script containing elements of the clerical style
  
  Bottle: 1740–1811
  Painting: Yiru jushi, attributed to Beijing, 1802–1811
  Height: 7.02 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.55/1.51 cm
  Stopper: jadeite; vinyl collar
  Condition: Crystal bottle: three small chips around the outer lip; the sharp edges of the faceting around the outer foot with minor chips and abrasions, with one small chip on the flat foot; minor other nibbles to the corners and edges of the faceting, none of it too alarming or inconsistent with long usage. Painting: the interior snuff stained and with some spoon marks; the calligraphy with some spoon scratches and smudges, and five characters at the top of one main side with some water damage. General relative condition: good for the works of this artist
  
  
  Provenance:
  Hugh M. Moss Ltd. (circa 1969)
  Unrecorded Collection
  Hugh M. Moss Ltd. (1983)
  Gerd Lester (1986)
  
  Published:
  JICSBS, December 1974, p. 20
  Treasury 4, no. 445
  Exhibited:
  Christie's, London, 1999
  
  Commentary:
  The encomium on the side without the signature is the same as on Treasury 4, no. 443 where its hidden meaning is explored, and reads:
  
  Comparable to jade, it is happily free of blemish;
  [Also] remarkably [similar to] ice, yet it is far more charming [than ice].
  What it holds inside is a uniquely different realm,
  Possessing an other-worldly flavour, something worth longing for.
  
  This poem also appears on Treasury 4, no. 447. The other side, which is also signed, is an extract from a fu, or long poetic composition with irregular lines and rhymes and reads:
  
  Then as soon as the setting sun had gone down in the West, a new moon half emerged. Lowly-drifting clouds shrouded the mountain peaks of Chu and mists enveloped the evening rivers. Having got there, the immortals...
  
  This and Treasury 4, nos. 446 and 447 are undated. The technique and skill suggest that it post-dates the bottle dated 1801 (Treasury 4, no. 437), but otherwise they might have been produced at any time during his career.
  
  An intriguing aspect of this bottle is the form of the crystal. Faceting was a standard imperial mode of snuff-bottle production used at the court in a number of workshops, and introduced from Europe by missionaries who set up the imperial glassworks in Beijing in the 1690s. This distinctive shape is found in another bottle by Yiru jushi
  from the Quek Kiok Lee Collection in Singapore dated to 1810, and on Treasury 4, no. 456 by Gan Xuanwen. It is also known in a small series of palace glass snuff bottles, including several imitating realgar, that are among the most exciting of all realgar-glass bottles. We know that a good deal of this brightly-coloured and fascinating glass was made at the court, and it may have been an imperial speciality, even if not exclusively. Added to his four other known faceted shapes, it is tempting to see it as one of the stronger links with an imperial source for Yiru jushi's bottles, which raises the question of the similar shape painted by Gan Xuanwen.
  
  If Gan followed Yiru jushi, he may have seen this bottle or another like it, perhaps while serving at court in the first decade of the nineteenth century and acquired a similarly shaped bottle. By reversing the chronological order of Gan and Yiru jushi, as we now have, we can expect Gan and his circle to have been influenced by Yiru jushi, and doing a similarly calligraphic work (significantly Gan's only known solely calligraphic work) inside a bottle of the same shape would not be unusual.
  
  The range of bottles used by Yiru jushi is additional circumstantial evidence that he worked from 1801–1811 rather than from 1861–1871 as previously thought. He obviously painted inside a variety of bottles, gathered from many different sources, unlike Gan Xuanwen who appears to have had a manufacturer make for him the majority of his blanks. In Yiru jushi's works we see a series of imperial shapes, alongside others which might have come from anywhere, and several with carved surfaces indicating that they were not, originally, intended to be painted inside and may even pre-date the art form entirely. Every single one of his extant works is inside a bottle that would be reasonably dated to the period from the mid-eighteenth century to 1811. There is none that obviously postdates 1811. It seems reasonable to assume that had Yiru jushi been painting between 1861 and 1871, he would have used some bottles that more obviously reflect his working period. No such bottles are in evidence. The bottles themselves strongly suggest the earlier period, and a connection to the court at Beijing with the preponderance of probably imperial forms among his works.
  
  
  多面水晶招吉慶
  
  無瑕水晶、墨；平唇、八角形平底；一正面內書"比玉喜無疵，疑冰倍有姿，箇中天自別，世外味堪思"，另一正面內書呂洞賓《群仙高會賦》五句："既而夕陽西墜，新月半吐，楚岫雲低，晚江煙鎖，而群仙至；此仙賦一則，雲峰"，款後落"雲峰"墨文一印 ，一側內書"壽比南山不老松"，另一側內書"福如東海長流水"， 肩部四小面各書一字，全文讀為"平安吉慶"，腹下四小面亦各書一字，全文讀為"福壽雙全"
  
  壺：1740～1811
  內晝：一如居士，推定為在北京作，1802～1811
  高：7.02 厘米
  口經/唇經：0.55/1.51 厘米
  蓋：翡翠，乙烯基座
  狀態敘述：壺：沿唇三小缺口，平底緣尖棱呈現微小的缺口與磨損，平底亦有一小缺口，此外小平面間的棱角有微小的咬痕，唯以上在積年使用後是合乎情理的而並不驚人；內書：內有鼻煙染色和匙擦痕，所書字亦給匙子擦了幾次，亦有污跡，一正面上部五個字有水漬痕；一般相對的狀況：就一如居士的作品來說，良好
  
  來源：
  Hugh M. Moss, Ltd (約1969)
  未記珍藏
  Hugh M. Moss, Ltd (1983)
  Gerd Lester (1986)
  文獻：
  《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, 1974年12月，頁20
  Treasury 4, 編號445
  展覽﹕
  佳士得，倫敦，1999年
  
  說明：
  本壺裏頭書寫的絕句，Treasury 4, 編號443、447亦有。Treasury 4, 編號437是一如居士辛酉年（1801年）作的；看本壺的技術與功夫，我們認為是那件以後的作品，但這不過是個猜測。
  
  本水晶壺迷人的一個特色是的它的形式。自從1690年代歐洲的傳教師開辦玻璃作坊以後，磨出小平面的水晶器是宮廷作坊的常規。本壺的特出形式也見於新加坡Quek Kiok Lee 珍藏的1810年製一如居士煙壺和Treasury 4， 編號456，甘烜文煙壺。同樣的形式也見於一系列的宮廷小型玻璃壺，包括模擬雄黃奪目的玻璃壺。這種光彩耀眼的玻璃很多是宮廷作坊作的，要不是宮廷作坊獨有的，也就是宮廷作坊的特產之一。看一如居士內畫或內書的煙壺，也許是一如居士水晶坯來自宮廷的旁證，同時也引起甘烜文類似形式內畫煙壺的問題。
  
  假如甘烜文是後出者，他可能是在宮庭看到本壺或者相似的煙壺，因而弄到了形式相似的無畫水晶煙壺來模仿。Treasury 4， 編號456是甘烜文單獨有書無畫的現存作品，我們推測他是受一如居士的影響是合乎情理的。
  
  一如居士所畫壺類的範圍是表明一如居士活躍於1801～1811的旁證。甘烜文好像有未畫壺的供應者，而一如居士內畫的壺則是多樣的﹕有宮廷風的，也有來源不明的形式，甚至有已經雕刻的，有些不是為內畫而作的，而是在內畫藝術尚未開始時作的。一如居士每一件現存內畫作品所畫的都是十八世紀中期到1811左右的壺，沒有一件呈現1811以後的特色。假如他像以前所說，是1861～1871活躍的，所用的壺一定會包括幾件屬於那時期的，然而，一如居士所用的壺沒有一件擁有那時期的特色。

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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