Bonhams 1793 : An inside-painted glass 'crane and landscape' snuff bottle Zhou Leyuan, dated 1892

24 Nov 2012 10:00 CST Hong Kong
The Paul Braga Collection of Snuff Bottles
Back to auction 20524

An inside-painted glass 'crane and landscape' snuff bottle

Zhou Leyuan, dated 1892
Of rectangular form with gently sloping shoulders, the interior intricately painted with a continuous scene of a crane perching on rockwork under a plum blossom tree, the reverse with additional bamboo growths.
6cm high.

Sold for HK$ 312,500 inc. premium

Footnotes

Zhou Leyuan (active 1882-1893) liked to imitate the spirit of the great masters by combining them with his own painting style. His technique also bore the characteristics of the Five Dynasties Masters Dong Yuan (?-962) and Ju Ran (unknown) of drawing small stones on the summits of mountains, such as the painting of 'Xiao and Xiang Rivers' by Dong Yuan, which is preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing.

One of the inscriptions can be paraphrased as "in the snowy weather, a crane will stay guarding the plum blossoms", which is in reference to the Northern Song poet Lin Bu (967-1028), who devoted his time to planting plums and raising cranes.

The genre of "crane and landscape" was always painted towards the later period of Zhou Leyuan's life. Among all the existing Zhou's "crane and landscape" snuff bottles, a closely related example from the Humphrey K. F. Hui collection has the closest resemblance to the current lot in terms of the subject matter, poem and dating. See Inkplay in Microcosm: Inside-Painted Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Humphrey K. F. Hui Collection, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Art Museum, Hong Kong, 2002, pl.21.

Compare also a similar snuff bottle by Ye Zhongsan, illustrated in Moss, Graham & Tsang, A Treasure of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol.4, Inside-Painted, Hong Kong, 2000, pp.190-191, no.504.

1892年周樂元玻璃內畫梅妻鶴子圖鼻煙壺

壺呈扁瓶形，圓肩，橢圓形圈足。通景繪石坡上橫生梅花一枝，旁立鶴子，並以月下翠竹作背景。一面題有「壬辰(1892)冬月周樂元作」，下畫「周氏」白文橢圓形印。另一面題「森森竹外一枝斜，皓月節空寫素華。莫道秋深無伴侶，天寒有鶴守槑(梅)花」，下畫「印」白文橢圓形印。書法流暢，構圖嚴謹，用筆有力，上色雅淡，充滿詩意。

周樂元(活躍於1882-1893)，其內畫山水風格成熟，但喜仿某畫家之筆意，雖在此鼻煙壺中云「倣石谷筆意」，但更似是其自家畫風:如強調董源的礬頭山水，不多用皴擦渲染等，可參考現藏北京故宮博物院的董源《瀟湘圖》。

詩中「莫道秋深無伴侶，天寒有鶴守梅花」，是指北宋時期，林逋(967-1028)以種梅花及養鶴子為樂，終身不娶的故事，被稱為梅妻鶴子。

梅妻鶴子圖是周樂元晚期常見的題材，在傳世例子中，近似例子有誦先芬室藏周樂元內畫梅妻鶴子圖鼻煙壺，其內容，詩句，繪畫年份與本壺相同，唯佈局左右相反，見香港中文大學中國文化硏究所文物館，《壺中墨妙:誦先芬室藏內畫鼻煙壺》，香港，2002年，編號21。

其他周樂元內畫通景梅妻鶴子圖鼻煙壺，見莫士撝, Victor Graham 及曾嘉寶著，《A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection 》，第4冊，第一部份，頁190-191，編號504。