Bottle ID: 00448

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CHEN ZHONGSAN, INSECTS, ROCKWORK & INSCRIPTION

Date: 1909

Height: 61 mm

 

Glass, ink and watercolors, of rectangular form with sloping shoulders, painted on the inside with a continuous scene of insects with grasshoppers and a praying mantis perched on pierced rockwork, one in the center on a spray of millet beside a lady-bug, above a spider's web with a spider and two trapped flies, a white cabbage and white blossom; with butterflies, dragonflies and other flying insects hovering above; an inscription to one face 'Made by Chen Zhongsan, At the Capital, yiyou year' with one seal, Yi.

 

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 168.
Stevens, Bob C.  The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, 1976, p. 246, no. 910.

 

Provenance:

Asian Art Studio
Sotheby's Hong Kong, October 30, 2000, lot 552
Guo'an Collection Inventory no. 108
Prof. N. Goren D. Malmquist, 1967, acquired in Beijing, 1956-58

 

Exhibited:
 

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

 

 

 

This is a scene that Chen Zhongsan has painted a number of times over his career, sometimes, as in the case of Crane No. 168, with a separate scene on each side and sometimes as a continuous scene.  However, Chen makes every composition unique, and this bottle, transcending the merely decorative, is no exception.  The boldness of the highly stylized pierced rockwork provides a strong framework for the insects around the lower half of the bottle, allowing those flying to hover in the air above.  In the following years, Chen never managed to repeat this subject matter with such a self-assured brush.

 

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