Footnotes

Treasury 4, no. 473

水晶內畫鼻煙壺
壺：1730～1850
內畫：周樂元，約1886年

Summer in the River Gorge

Flawless crystal, ink, and watercolours; with a slightly concave lip and recessed flat foot surrounded by a protruding convex footrim; painted on one main side with a scholar seated in a boat, being poled by a boatman, in a river gorge between tree-laden banks and cliffs with a country retreat or small village in the middle distance and towering mountains beyond, with two seals of the artist, le, and, yuan, both in positive seal script, the other main side with a similar scene, but with a scholar crossing a rustic bridge, holding a long staff, his attendant walking behind him carrying a large bundle
Bottle: 1730–1850
Painting: Zhou Leyuan, Studio of Lotus-root Fragrance, Xuannan, Beijing, circa 1886
Height: 8.25 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.62/1.62 cm
Stopper: tourmaline; vinyl collar
Condition: Bottle: minute chip on outer lip, otherwise perfect. Painting: studio condition with the exception of a mild spoon scratch through the lower seal. General relative condition: exceptional

Provenance:
Robert Hall (1991)
Hugh M. Moss Ltd. (1992)

Published:
JICSBS, Spring 1991, p. 1
JICSBS, Winter 1992, back cover
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 314
Treasury 4, no. 473
Exhibited:
Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
National Museum, Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
Christie's, London, 1999

Commentary
This is one of Zhou's great early masterpieces. The two lovely landscape scenes are painted with great subtlety, the paintings are in studio condition and the crystal bottle as elegant and lovely a form for an inside-painted as any known. Although it is not signed, the seals leave us in no doubt as to who painted it, and even without them there would still be no doubt. Nobody else ever copied this early Zhou style, preferring to copy the style he was doing when the first of his followers began working around 1890. At that time they would have seen his style as he was doing it then and copied that, rather than have delved back in time to copy his earlier works.

When published previously, this bottle was dated to 1885 on stylistic grounds, but we believe it was painted in 1886, and probably in the middle of the year. The landscapes from 1885 are on a smaller scale, and use none of the pale, turquoise green wash which permeates this painting. The closest parallel is with the landscape, of a very similar subject in identical style, from the J & J Collection, formerly in the Ko Collection (Moss, Graham, Tsang, Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, no. 409). That one was painted in the summer of 1886 and it seems likely that this was painted at about the same time. Another feature both have, which is absent from landscapes from 1885, is the large-scale pine trees with green foliage which are the forerunners of his standard later pine tree.

The subject here is, yet again, the idealized landscape inhabited by the scholar with nothing better to do than delight in it. The old man crossing the bridge on one side, in a very similar composition to the old man on a bridge in the J & J bottle, is out for a stroll, staff in hand, his servant a step or two behind him. The other side appears to depict a scholar out boating who is either doing it for the sheer joy of it, or taking a ferry across the river, not that the two are mutually exclusive.

The interior polishing here also allows for one side to be partially seen from the other, as on Treasury 4, no. 472, where the phenomenon is discussed. This may seem a strange choice for an inside-painted bottle, and particularly one as delicately painted as this where the transparency can confuse the paintings on the two sides, even with the hand blocking out any back-light. It is worth reminding ourselves, however, of one salient fact about inside-painted snuff bottles: they were made to hold snuff. Filled with snuff, the degree of transparency would have been unimportant, other than as it affected the capacity of the surface to hold the pigments. Watercolours will not hold well on a transparent crystal or glass surface, but will on an etched, frosted one. This point is well made by surviving bottles painted on shiny interiors, none of which are without some flaking away of areas of paint.


五月泛扁舟， 歸心豈畏暑。

無瑕水晶、墨、水色；微凹唇、平斂底、凸形圈足；一面內畫遠山三疊，中景林村隱約可見，近景左右兩岸間泛著小舟一艘，舟中一士人坐，一舟人掌篙，左上有二白地朱印："樂"、"元"，另一面畫有類似的布局，澗中卻是士人隨著拿大包的童子在小橋上漫步

壺：1730～1850
內畫：周樂元，藕香書軒，宣南房舍，北京，約1886年
高：8.25 厘米
口經/唇經：0.62/1.62 厘米
蓋：碧璽，乙烯基座
狀態敘述：壺：唇緣有一細小缺口，此外完整無缺；圖："元"字印有微小的匙傷痕，此外出齋狀態；一般相對的狀況：特好

來源：
羅伯特．霍爾（1991）
Hugh M. Moss Ltd (1992)
文獻：
《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society 1992 春期，頁1
《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society 1992 冬期，封底
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, 編號314
Treasury 4, 編號473
展覽：
香港藝術館，1994年3 月至6月
National Museum of Singapore, 1994年11月至1995年2 月
佳士得，倫敦，1999年

說明：
本壺是周樂元早期傑作之一。兩幅優美的山水畫畫得很精細，保留剛出齋的狀態，水晶壺也是跟其他第一流的內畫煙壺一樣的優雅。雖然不署名，《樂》、《元》兩個印表明是周樂元畫的，而且他早期的這個風格從來沒有人模仿過，他的徒弟總是模仿他1890年前後的風格。徒弟們仿效周樂元當前的作法而不追隨模仿早期的，應當是在情理之中的。

以前，我們根據風格推定本壺是1885年作的，現在我們相信它是1886年作的，而且大概是中期作的。1885年畫的山水圖規模稍微小一點，也不使用如此的弱綠寶石色。1886年夏畫天的J & J 珍藏中的一件周樂元內畫壺（以前克立德珍藏所收；Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, 409編號）有風格類似的山水圖， 那件和這件都有規模較大的松樹；它們是以後的標準松樹的先聲，而是1885年的山水圖中見不到的。
本壺內壁磨砂處理不太徹底，望此面可見彼面若隱若現的圖畫；不過，鼻煙壺是用來裝鼻煙的，煙粉一裝好了，壺身的透明度就毫不相干了，只是光滑的內壁難以著墨施彩，有一些現存的內壁光滑的內畫壺為證，盡皆有剝落的顏料。