A RARE INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE

SIGNED LIU BAOJUN, DATED TO THE JIACHEN YEAR, CORRESPONDING TO 1904

Details

A RARE INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
SIGNED LIU BAOJUN, DATED TO THE JIACHEN YEAR, CORRESPONDING TO 1904
Of rounded-rectangular form with concave lip and recessed convex foot surrounded by a footrim, painted with a continuous scene of a pheasant standing on one foot beside the slender trunk of a tree entwined with a wisteria vine, its drooping clusters of flowers (racemes) pendent from the leafy branch which continues on the reverse above an ornamental rock, inscribed in draft script "Painted in the jiachen year by Liu Baojun," with the seal jun, glass stopper with silver collar
2 9/16 in. (6.5 cm.) high

Provenance

Sotheby Parke Bernet, Hong Kong, 2 November 1978, lot 103.
Hugh Moss Ltd.

Exhibited

Canadian Craft Museum, Vancouver, 1992.

Lot Essay

Liu Baojun seems to have been a scholar-artist who was not a prolific painter. There are only seven known inside-painted bottles by his hand, all dated to either 1904 (six examples) or 1907 (one example). Three of the known examples are in the Meriem collection, and are the most impressive of them all.

See B. Stevens, The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, no. 831, for an example by Liu with birds in flight.

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