Footnotes

Treasury 4, no. 656


玉髓內畫采菱浴牛鼻煙壺
壺：頒賜類， 1760～1860
內畫：王習三，北京，1962年


Bathing the Water Buffalo

Transparent chalcedony, ink, and watercolours; with a concave lip and recessed, slightly convex foot surrounded by a protruding convex footrim; the narrow sides carved with mask-and-ring handles; painted on one side with a scene of two children in a boat picking water caltrops in a lotus pond, inscribed in draft script with the title 'Gathering Water Caltrops', followed by 'Painted by Xisan at the capital', with three seals of the artist, an indecipherable one preceding the inscription, and Wang and Xisan, both in negative seal script, following it, the other main side with a herdboy leading his water buffalo ashore from a river beneath dangling willow branches, inscribed in draft script with the title 'Bathing a Water Buffalo', followed by, '[Painted] in the first month of the year renyin', followed by one seal of the artist, yin (seal), in negative seal script

Bottle: Official school, 1760–1860
Painting: Wang Xisan, Beijing, first month, 1962
Height: 7 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.73/2.12 cm
Stopper: glass; stained walrus-ivory collar
Condition: Bottle: perfect. Inside painting: studio condition

Provenance:
Unrecorded source (prior to 1970)
Hugh Moss (1985)

Published:
Treasury 4, no. 656

Exhibited:
Christie's, London, 1999

Commentary:
Wang Xisan will go down in history as one of the major figures in the art of painting inside snuff bottles. At his artistic peak he produced paintings which ranked him on an equal footing with the great masters of the past. His finest works could stand proudly beside those of Zhou Leyuan, Ding Erzhong, and Ma Shaoxuan. But quite apart from his contribution as an artist, his influence over the art form as a whole is considerable, and his efforts rank alongside those of Zhou Leyuan and the Ye brothers, Xiaofeng and Bengqi, in terms of the popularisation and continuity of the art form. Wang is assured a place among the giants of the art. The Bloch Collection has a selection of Wang's masterpieces from the creative height of his career, mostly from the private collection which had been built up over the years by Hugh Moss.

At the height of his artistic talents and before the Cultural Revolution, Wang had access to plenty of early plain bottles of superb quality to paint, and many of his finest works seem to have been partly inspired by the lovely quality of the old bottles he was using. None of his early works in the Bloch Collection are in newly made bottles, and this is no exception. In a chalcedony bottle from the Official school (see Treasury 2, no. 258) which, in the early 1960s when Wang painted this, would have been virtually unsaleable as a plain bottle, he has painted two of his characteristically inventive subjects. Even as early in his career as this, Wang demonstrates his complete mastery of the art.


采菱舟動吳牛閑

透明玉髓、墨、水色；凹唇、略凸斂底、突出凸形圈足；兩側雕獸首啣環耳；一面內畫蓮池二子采菱圖， 其上書"採菱圖，習三作於京都"，其後繪"王" 、"習三"二白文篆印，其前繪難辨認的一印，另一正面內畫牧童牽池塘中水牛，其上題"浴牛圖，壬寅正月"，題後落白文"印"一篆印

壺：頒賜類， 1760～1860
內畫：王習三，北京，1962年1月
高：7 厘米
口經/唇經：0.73/2.12 厘米
蓋：玻璃，染海象牙座
狀態敘述：壺：完善；內畫：出齋狀態

來源：
未錄來源（1970之前）
莫士撝（1985）
文獻﹕
Treasury 4， 編號656
展覽﹕
佳士得，倫敦，1999年

說明：
伯樂珍藏收藏王習三作業全盛時期的內畫煙壺，多半是莫士撝曾經逐年收集的私人收藏系列。伯樂珍藏所存的每一件早期作品都是舊壺新畫。文革之前，未修飾的舊煙壺唾手可得，如此賜頒類的玉髓鼻煙壺，在1962年不會有市場，但王習三內畫採菱浴牛圖之後，卻成為他早期精湛傑作之一。