Footnotes

Treasury 5, no. 1021


藍地白料套鼻煙壺
揚州，大概是李均亭，1819年


Li Junting's Rosetta Stone

Translucent white and turquoise-blue glass with an inner layer of more greenish turquoise colour; with a flat lip and recessed flat foot surrounded by a protruding flattened footrim; carved as a single overlay with a continuous landscape scene, the rocky ground with, on one main side, a boy squatting while tending two horses beneath a bare willow tree, with two swallows flying above, inscribed in relief seal script, 'Precious collection of Mr. Li of Jingjiang, [in the] twelfth month of the year jimao', and on the other with a crane, its beak open, flying above an old man holding a gnarled walking staff beside a clump of lingzhi, his servant standing nearby next to another crane, with a seal in relief, positive seal script, Junting
Li Weizhi, 1879 (Note: We formerly ascribed this to a Li Junting and interpreted the year as equivalent to 1819; we now think it may have been made at the behest of the late nineteenth-century Yangzhou philanthropist Li Weizhi, but the evidence is still being re-evaluated)
Height: 6.13 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.60/1.49 cm
Stopper: jadeite; gilt bronze collar
Condition: miniscule, shallow chip in outer footrim (greatest extent less than 0.1 cm). General relative condition: apart from the tiny chip, in studio condition


Provenance:
Susan Cheng Hayward, Hong Kong (1990)

Published:
Kleiner 1995, no. 171
Treasury 5, no. 1021

Exhibited:
British Museum, London, June-October 1995
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July-November 1997

Commentary:
Referring to this bottle in Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, p. 650, we dubbed it the 'Rosetta Stone' of the school attributed to Yangzhou. It is inscribed unambiguously with a date, and that it was made for the 'precious collection' of Mr. Li of Jingjiang, the seal consisting of the zi (personal name), Junting. Under Treasury 5, no. 1011 we cited a rare vase, also made by Li Junting, with a seal on the base stating that it was made for Weizhi. We now know that there was a Yangzhou philanthropist named Li Weizhi with the zi Junting or, read properly, Yunting. Like several Chinese characters, jun has more than one reading; in this case, it is also an ancient form of yun, 'resonance', and can be read with that pronunciation. On Treasury 5, no. 1024, we find the name written with the standard yun: 'For the enjoyment of Yunting himself'.

Li Weizhi was a native of Dantu and set up a silk factory in Zhenjiang, right across the Yangtze River from Yangzhou, in 1895. Jingjiang, which this bottle tells us is Li's native place, is an old name for both Dantu (now a district of Zhenjiang) and Zhenjiang. Despite the strong association of this style of glass snuff bottle with Yangzhou, it is possible that Li Weizhi had his bottles made in Zhenjiang. Whatever the case, our new knowledge of Li Yunting's identity enables us to reassess the bottles we have been ascribing to the 'Li Junting school'; we are engaged in that process and shall soon be making a full report to the snuff-bottle world.


李均亭之羅塞達石

通體皇家藍色半透明玻璃 （壺身內層是寶石碧綠色），套飾白色半透明料；平唇、平斂底、突出削平底圈足；單層料雕通體景致，一正面套飾一童子蹲著看守二匹馬，有二隻燕子翔飛於上，浮雕有"己卯十二月京江李氏珍藏"篆款，另一正面套飾一老翁攜杖而行，老翁後邊站一童子與一隻鶴，另一隻在天空飛過，浮雕有"均亭"一篆印

揚州，李維之，1879
高：6.13 厘米
口經/唇經：0.60/1.49 厘米
蓋：翡翠，描金青銅座
狀態敘述：圈足外緣有微乎其微的缺口， 不過0.1 寬；一般相對的狀態：除缺口外，出坊狀況

來源：
Kleiner 1995, 編號171
Treasury 5， 編號1021
展覽﹕
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：
慈善家李維之，字韵亭，丹徒人，1895年建立鎮江四經絲廠；京江，鎮江也，亦稱丹徒。均，一念ㄩㄣˋ，yùn，韻/韵的古字。Treasury 5, 1024 題"韵亭自賞"，乃李維之字或寫均亭或寫韵亭之證也。李維之居揚州，1880年為復茂恆錢莊之頭。我們正在分析李維之與前所稱"李均亭流派"套料玻璃壺的關係，將作詳細的報告。