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Bottle ID: 00405
YE ZHONGSAN, GOLDFISH SWIMMING AMONG PLANTS
Date: 1908
Height: 42 mm
Crystal, with inclusions of green hair-like actinolite crystals, ink and watercolors; of well-hollowed cylindrical form with a slightly flared cylindrical neck and flat circular footrim, painted inside with nine fan-tailed goldfish swimming among aquatic plants, inscribed in draft script, 'Made by Ye Zhongsan in a winter month of the year wushen' with one seal of the artist, Yin.
Similar Examples:
Crane Collection no. 39.
Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., New York, May 12, 1970, lot 456, The Collection of Mrs. Elmer A. Claar, Part Three.
Sotheby's, Hong Kong, October 30, 2000, lot 685, The Guo'an Collection.
Provenance:
Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
Exhibited:
Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007
Published:
JICSBS, Autumn 1982, p. 44, fig. 122
During the early years of this century, Ye Zhongsan began to fully realize the potential of painting inside materials other than glass and crystal although in that, as in most other things, he followed Zhou Leyuan who had already painted inside hair crystal, also with the subject of fish, as early as 1886. Among Ye's output was a spectacular small group of hair crystal bottles painted from 1905 onwards, with his characteristic fan-tailed goldfish. There is another example recorded, with the more usual black tourmaline needles forming the 'hairs' in the crystal, which is also of this unusual 'snuff-pot' form. Green hair crystal is the rarest of the three colors in which this material occurs, owing to the presence of needle-like crystals of actinolite, rather than of tourmaline (black) crystals or rutile (coppery-red to gold) crystals.
Like the example in this collection, painted inside an agate bottle (Crane Collection No. 39) which is dated to 1904, Ye has been inspired by the material of the bottle, making the crystal and the painting an integrated work of art. The slightly murky watery color of the crystal and the three dimensionality provided by both the actinolite needles, representing water-weeds, and the form of the bottle, bring to life the image of goldfish swimming in a pond.