Footnotes

• Treasury 4, no. 654
  
  玻璃內畫飛燕圖鼻煙壺
  畢榮九，1898年作
  
  An inside-painted glass 'swallows and willow trees' snuff bottle
  
  ('A Shandong Harbinger of Spring')
  
  Glass, ink, and watercolours; with a slightly concave lip, and recessed, convex foot surrounded by a protruding, rounded footrim; painted with a continuous scene of seven swallows, willow trees, and blossoming peach trees, inscribed in draft script with' The slender swallows are blown sideways by a head wind. Painted in the third month of the year wuxu,' and followed by 'Executed by Rongjiu,' with one indecipherable seal of the artist in negative seal script.
  Bi Rongjiu, Boshan, Shandong province, third month, 1898
  Height: 6.12 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.6/1.54 cm
  Stopper: jadeite; vinyl collar
  
  Condition: Bottle: insignificant nibbles to outer lip; tiny insignificant chip to inner lip; otherwise, in workshop condition. Painting: a few very minor, unobtrusive spoon scratches; the interior with white snuff staining. General relative condition: excellent
  
  Lot 116 Provenance:
  Robert Hall (1985)
  
  Published:
  Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 360
  Treasury 4, no. 654
  
  Exhibited:
  Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
  National Museum, Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
  Christie's, London, 1999
  
  Commentary
  When Hugh Moss was in Beijing in early 1974, he requested a meeting with artists from the Shandong school of inside painting, which the Chinese call the Lu school, using the name of the ancient feudal state in what is now south-western Shandong. With China barely open to foreigners at the time, the thought of Moss going to Shandong and poking around was not one that could be entertained, but the authorities were kind enough to bring in two of the major artists from the province to spend a few days in Beijing and be interviewed. From them came some of the details of the birth of the Shandong School.
  
  A glass-maker called Wang Zi was the supplier of glass blanks to the Beijing artists such as Ma Shaoxuan and Zhou Leyuan, among others. He travelled frequently between Shandong and Beijing, carrying his glass blanks, and in the process of delivering themgot to know the artists quite well. From them he learned the art of painting snuff bottles. Bi Rongjiu (1874 – 1925), a friend of Wang, was fascinated by this new art form, and Wang agreed to teach him. He was apparently a quick pupil and soon mastered the art, setting up the Shandong School in the late nineteenth century.(Another version of the story has Wang's nephew making the trips to Beijing and managing to get a look at the kind of bamboo brush Zhou Leyuan was using, which he then described to Bi Rongjiu.) Bi Rongjiu was married and had two sons, Bi Baosan and Bi Hengyuan, although only the first learned to paint inside snuff bottles.Bi also taught Zhang Wentang and Zhao Yuting. These two died in 1967 and 1961 respectively. Another pupil of Bi's was Zhang Wentang's son, Zhang Dunrui, also known as Xuecun, and it was the two Zhangs who helped to revive the art form in Shandong province after 1949, teaching a new generation of artists, including the extraordinary Li Kechang.A jumbled version of this story of how the art began in Boshan was quoted from a Chinese tourist magazine of the 1950s and appears inMoss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, under no. 451.
  
  By 1897, Bi Rongjiu had developed his own landscape style, which was to remain with him and inform the entire school until the modern artists began to paint after 1949.His landscape from the second month of the year in the J & J Collection (Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, no. 451) is one of his finest and shows that he was an artist who developed his own style quite rapidly and was not easily swayed by the style of others. Production from the Shandong School becomes somewhat confused at this point, since with the other artists Bi trained, many of whom not only worked in his style and possibly under his name, but also assumed a number of different art names each, it is difficult to separate out their works. What is clear is that the Shandong School became a commercial school, mass-producing bottles. Still, the better painters, such as Bi Rongjiu, continued to produce individual works of considerable merit between the dross.
  
  This is another of Bi Rongjiu's masterpieces. It may have been inspired either by Zhou Leyuan or Ma Shaoxuan.It is also an unusual subject for him, painted very few times and only in his early years. It is a beautifully controlled painting, with a fine sense of composition and a delightful subject.
  
  玻璃內畫飛燕圖鼻煙壺
  
  玻璃、墨、水彩顏料；微凹唇, ，凸斂底，突出圓棱圈足; 內書"輕燕受風斜，戊戍三月寫，榮九作"，後加不可辨認的印
  畢榮九, 山東輔博山，1898年3月作
  高：6.12 厘米
  口經/唇經：0.6/1.54 厘米
  蓋： 翡翠; 乙烯基座
  
  狀態敘述： 壺：唇外沿呈微不足道的咬痕；內沿有微乎其微的缺口；此外，出坊狀態. 內畫：細微的匙刮痕，幾乎看不見，壺身內壁有白色的鼻煙污漬。 總體品相： 極善
  
  來源：
  Robert Hall (1985)
  
  文獻：
  Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, 編號 360
  Treasury 4, 編號 654
  
  展覽：
  Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
  National Museum, Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
  Christie's, London, 1999
  
  說明：
  畢榮九 (1874 – 1925) 是山東內畫藝術的奠基人，他去北京訪師學藝的細節有很多不同的說法，而畢榮九的藝術成就有時高有時不高，但無論如何，本壺是他的傑作之一。可能是周樂元或馬少宣給啟發的，也是他不常畫的題材，只有他早期的內畫鼻煙壺畫了這個題目。布局好，筆法精工。
  
  

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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