Bottle ID: 00659

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YAN YUTIAN, TRAVELER ON A CAMEL ON SNOWY LANDSCAPE

Date: circa 1895

Height: 67 mm

Glass, ink and watercolors, of rectangular form with sloping shoulders, painted inside on one side with a winter scene of a traveler on a camel riding through the snowy landscape; the reverse with lotus leaves and flowers rising from muddy waters.  Signed Yan Yutian.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 111.
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, nos. 99 and 107.
Christie's New York, March 21, 2002, The Blanche B. Exstein Collection, lot 76.

Provenance:

Asian Art Studio

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

Together with elephants, the Bactrian camel was used as a beast of burden in Central Asia along the Silk Road, hence the old saying that camels were the "ships of the desert".  From the 6th Century A.D. and from the Tang Dynasty onwards, the camel became indispensable to the Imperial Court both for military and commercial purposes.  Without the camel to handle long and arduous trips, the Silk Road to the West, with its mountains and deserts, would have been impenetrable.  The Imperial herds became so important, as the Silk Road, developed that a corps of state officials were appointed to oversee them.  In addition to their military and commercial uses, camels from the Imperial herds were also used for hunting.  Despite their inherent ugliness and unpleasant smell, it is easy to understand why camels as subject matter occur fairly often in Chinese art of the Qing Dynasty.  The inside painted artists such as Gui Xianggu, Sun Xingwu and Ye Zhongsan, along with Yan Yutian, depict this popular theme in inside painted bottles.  And as one scholar remarked, it is the one subject where art always surpasses nature!

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