Bottle ID: 00439

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TANG ZICHUAN, LANDSCAPE SCENE W/BOATS ON RIVER & HOUSES

Date: 1892-1901

Height: 66 mm

Glass, ink and watercolors, of rounded rectangular form with sloping shoulders, painted on the inside with a continuous landscape scene with sail boats on a meandering river, beneath mountains in the distance and a sage strolling on the river-bank by a tree and two country houses towards a traveler looking out at the boats, standing by other riverside dwellings, including a temple, beneath an overhanging bluff in the foreground; inscribed in draft script 'Made by Tang Zichuan at the Capital,' with one illegible seal.

Similar Examples:

Hui, Humphrey K. F., Lai Suk Yee and Peter Y. K. Lam.  Inkplay in Microcosm - Inside-painted Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Humphrey K. F. Hui Collection, 2002, no. 120.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
Urs Frech, Switzerland
Daisy Huang, New York

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

Tang Zichuan is one of the most fascinating artists of the Beijing School.  His dated works, which number under ten, are from 1892 to 1901, although the bottles are usually not dated.  His intriguing work varied in style from bottle to bottle and included some strange scenes of foreign cities (apparently Russian).  When Ye Bengqi was interviewed by Hugh Moss in 1974, Ye stated that Tang had lived outside the Chongwen gate in Beijing, near the flower market.

This bottle is one of his masterpieces with a subject which is only hinted at once elsewhere in his works where a similar continuous landscape also has the exaggerated promontory of this one.  In a further and slightly amusing departure from the Beijing School style, Tang continues the painting under the bottle in its rounded interior base.

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