Bottle ID: 00396

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MENG ZISHOU, SAMPAN ON A RIVER W/MOUNTAINOUS LANDSCAPE

Date: 1905

Height: 67 mm

Glass, ink and watercolors, of squared form with rounded shoulders, painted on the inside, on one side with a scene of a sampan on a river which meanders through the rocky mountainous landscape, nestled with pine trees and pavilions, with one seal and dated yisi year, 1905, and an inscription reading: 'For the pure cleansing of His Eminence Third Uncle Liangchen' and signed 'Made by Meng Zishou'; the reverse with a portrait of the actor Tang Xinpei in one of his famous roles from Nan Tianmen.

Similar Examples:

Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang.  A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2000, Vol. 4, Part 2, pp. 520-521, 524-525, nos. 639 and 641.
Sotheby's, New York, September 14, 2010, lot 140, The Joe Grimberg Collection.

 

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.
The Monimar Collection
Clare Lawrence Ltd.
Emily Bryne Curtis
The White Wings Collection
Sotheby's, London, October 13, 1987, lot 151
The Eric Young Collection
Sotheby's, New York, November 3, 1982, lot 265
Dr. and Mrs. Louis B. Wolferz, Yenging University, Beijing

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

Annual Convention ICSBS Hong Kong, October 1996
Christie's, St. James's, London, June, 1996
Annual Convention ICSBS New York, October 1993

 

Published:

Lawrence, Clare.  Miniature Masterpieces from the Middle Kingdom - The Monimar Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1996, pp. 304-305, no. 146.213.

Meng Zishou, whose proper name was Meng Zhaoxuan, painted from 1904 until 1919, with approximately ninety bottles remaining today in collections.  The three dated examples from 1904 show that he was already an accomplished painter so it is likely that he began painting before this.  His work was not always consistently of a high quality, but at best could be outstanding, with strong and unique brush work.  He painted seven known Beijing opera paintings and a number of landscapes over the years.

Meng's landscape compositions show similarities in style, although they are always unique.  A comparable landscape is shown in Moss et. al. (Bloch No. 639) where the rockwork is very similar, although the palette is different.  Meng states on the Bloch bottle that he is painting in the style of Huanghe shanqiao, the art name of Wang Meng (1308-1385), one of the 'Four Great Yuan Masters'. Moss et. al. challenge this, stating that the bottle is more in the style of the Lingnan School which influenced Meng throughout his career.

Three of Meng's opera paintings were painted in 1905.  The portrait is of the famous opera star Tan Xinpei (1847-1917) as an old man in the role of Deng Bodao in the opera Sangyuan jizi (Adopted Son at the Mulberry Garden).  This is fully discussed in Moss et. al. (Bloch No. 641) where the bottle also shows Tan Xinpei as Deng Bodao on one side and uniquely, a scene from the opera on the other.  While the Crane bottle was painted in 1905 and shows Tan Xinpei as a younger man (despite his role as an older character), the Bloch example was executed in 1919, two years after the death of Tan Xinpei, and in the last recorded year of Meng's painting.

The inscription on the Crane bottle is particularly interesting as Liangchen is the personal name of Tong Zhongyi (1879-1963).  Tong was a Manchu and a famous martial arts master, whose school of Chinese wrestling is alive and kicking today.  His famous publication, 'Method of Chinese Wrestling' (1935) has been recently reprinted in China and is also available in English, having been translated this year (2005).  It is clear that in 1905, the date of this bottle, Tong's nephew thought that taking snuff would be a 'pure cleansing' for his uncle, indicating that the addictive properties of snuff were not yet realized.

Little is known about Meng Zishou, other than information gleaned from the inscriptions on the bottles themselves.  However, Emily Byrne Curtis in the Journal of the ICSBS (Autumn, 1985) makes a tantalizing reference to an auction catalogue listed by Prof. Victor Graham in the Journal of the ICSBS, Autumn 1983, item 308.  This refers to a collection of Chinese antiques, including 105 snuff bottles sold by the American Art Galleries, May 1, 1916 from the Collection of General Hwang Hsing (Huang Xing).  One of the illustrated bottles in this catalogue was lot 39, an inside painted bottle of fishes by Meng Zishou, described as follows:

'Unique Smoky Quartz Snuff Bottle - The interior has been intricately painted though the minute aperture with an undersea scene of gold fishes, and other species of fishes, sea plants and mosses in natural colors.  A poem in Chinese writing is by Mung Tze Shau, a great eunuch'.  As Emily Byrne Curtis rightly points out, it is the last three words of this 1916 description that are so arresting as we have no knowledge that Meng or any other inside painted artist was a eunuch.

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