Footnotes

• Treasury 5, no. 1032
  
  白套紅玻璃壽陽公主鼻煙壺
  揚州，1880年製
  
  An inscribed ruby-red glass overlay 'Princess Shouyang' snuff bottle
  
  Transparent, slightly streaky, ruby-red glass on translucent white glass; with a flat lip and recessed convex foot surrounded by a protruding flattened footrim; carved on one main side with Princess Shouyang asleep on a bench, leaning on her fan, beneath a blossoming prunus tree from which petals fall, with perforated rock formations, inscribed in relief, 'Prunus blossoms mark the forehead, Made in the year gengchen', the other main side with the Hehe immortals in a long boat, one holding a spray of lotus while the other holds a box on his shoulder with one hand and paddles with the other, with a seal in relief, Yunting.
  Probably Yangzhou, 1880
  Height: 6.05 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.65/1.82 cm
  Stopper: jadeite; vinyl collar
  
  Condition: several miniscule chips to inner lip, insignificant; small chip on the side of the oval seal; miniscule chip on the very top right tip of the prunus tree, barely visible; otherwise, workshop condition
  
  Provenance:
  Cyrus Jasperse
  Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 14 March 1979, lot 3
  
  Published:
  Kleiner 1987, no.126
  Treasury 5, no. 1032
  Moss and Sargent 2011, fig. 37, lower left
  
  Exhibited:
  Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, October 1987
  Creditanstalt, Vienna, May-June 1993
  
  The close similarity of this bottle to the Sale 2, lot 141 in both style and feeling includes the fact that the overlay colour of the crisply-carved footrim falls short of precisely matching the outer form of the rim where it meets the body of the bottle—although the neck rim here, as there, is impeccably matched. The stylistic associations between the carving of the sleeping princess here and the scholar in that one are irresistible, for they display identical poses, the left leg raised and set over the right (although this is partially concealed by a skirt worn by the princess). Only the fan held by each of them is in a different position. This also exhibits a corresponding level of control in the shading of the overlay colour, used here to separate the sleeping princess from the ground and define the balustrades of the palace terrace on which she sleeps. The log boat on the other side alerts us to the presence of transcendent beings, two youths known as the Hehe immortals, identified by the lotus flower (hehua) and the box (hezi), symbols associated with them that also provide the name Hehe (see Sale 2, lot 32).
  
  This is one of those bottles on which the name Yunting is written with a character ordinarily pronounced jun, hence our past references—also before we realized Li Yunting was a patron, not a glass carver—to the 'Li Junting school'. Sale 2, lot 141, whose stylistic similarities we have just noted, was made for Li's brother, Li Weizhi (Li Peizhen).
  
  Legend has it that Princess Shouyang, daughter of Emperor Wu of Song (r. 420- 422 AD) in the Six Dynasties period, once took a nap on the veranda of the Hanzhang palace after she had admired the prunus blossoms in the garden. While she slept, some blossoms were blown from the branches, and one flower landed on her forehead, leaving faint marks of five pink petals. She was unaware of this after she awoke, but the court ladies were fascinated by her appearance and followed suit, pressing prunus flowers onto their foreheads and calling the result 'prunus-blossom make-up.' In Chinese folklore, she is respected as the flower goddess of the first month, with the prunus blossom as her emblem.
  
  白套紅玻璃春睡夏萌圖鼻煙壺
  
  透亮白地套寶石紅料；平唇，凸斂底，突出弄平的圈足；一正面刻壽陽公主靠著宮扇睡，左上題"梅華點額，庚辰作"，另一正面刻和合仙人泛舟圖，刻"均亭"篆印
  擬屬揚州，1880
  高﹕ 6.05 厘米
  口經/唇經： 0.65/1.82 厘米
  蓋： 翡翠；乙烯基座
  
  狀態敘述：內唇有些微不足道的缺口，橢圓形印一邊有小缺口，梅樹梢有微乎其微的缺口，幾乎看不見；此外，出坊狀態
  
  來源﹕
  Cyrus Jasperse
  紐約蘇富比．帕克．波納，1979年3月14日，拍賣品號 3
  
  文獻﹕
  Kleiner 1987, no.126
  Treasury 5, 編號1032
  Moss and Sargent 2011, 圖37, 下左
  
  展覽﹕
  Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, October 1987
  Creditanstalt, Vienna, May-June 1993
  
  說明﹕
  本壺和 第二場拍賣會，拍賣品號 141 在風格和技巧上很相似，包括在圈足接壺身的細節。
  
  均亭，韻亭也，李培松的字。李培松、李培楨兄弟，1870以後居揚州，是个園主。第二場拍賣會，拍賣品號 141 是為了李培楨維之作的。
  
  
  

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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