Bottle ID: 00394

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ZHOU LEYUAN, LANDSCAPE W/CRICKETS, DRAGONFLIES & SCRIPT

Date: circa 1892

Height: 59 mm

Crystal, ink and watercolors, of rectangular form with sloping shoulders, painted on the inside with a continuous scene of crickets and dragonflies on a mossy bank amidst flowers, beside a river with a school of fish beneath an overhanging branch with an inscription: 'Emulating the personal style of the Recluse of Xinluo', signed Zhou Leyuan, undated with the seal of Yuan.

Similar Examples:

Holden, Rachelle R. Rivers and Mountains Far From the World - The Rachelle R. Holden Collection, 1994, pp. 188-189, no. 81.
Sotheby's, New York, September 17, 1996, lot 113, Bernice Straus Hasterlik Collection.
Little, Stephen L. and Joseph B. Silver. The World in a Bottle: Chinese Inside-Painted Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Joseph Baruch Silver and Traditional Chinese Paintings, 1994, p. 73, no. C15.
Sotheby's, New York, September 14, 2010, lot 136, The Joe Grimberg Collection.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.
The Monimar Collection
Sotheby's, Hong Kong, October 30, 1990, lot 140
The Kaynes-Klitz Collection

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007
Christie's St. James's, London, June 1996
Annual Convention ICSBS Hong Kong, October 1996

Published:

Lawrence, Clare. Miniature Masterpieces from the Middle Kingdom - The Monimar Collection, pp. 282-283, no. 135.168.

Xinluo Shanren (Recluse of Xinluo) is the art name of Hua Yan (1682-1756), a painter who was known as one of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou. Hua Yan was an accomplished calligrapher, having passed the Official Examinations in 1717, and was a painter of landscapes and nature. He chose, however, not to remain in Beijing declining the position offered, but went to Hangzhou and later to Yangzhou. Despite his talent in displaying the natural world, he spent most of his life impoverished. Zhou Leyuan too, was a professional painter, albeit of bottles, who must have admired Hua Yan as a person and a painter. Zhou also seemed to aspire to loftier ambitions, delivering work that was consistently of the highest quality and imbued with the symbolism understood by the literati. Although he repeated subject matter, every painting was original and every composition was imaginatively varied.

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