Bottle ID: 722

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LIU SHOUBEN, PORTRAIT OF DR. LI SHIZHEN

Date: Spring 1978

Height: 63 mm

Glass, ink and watercolors, of rectangular form with rounded shoulders sloping to a cylindrical neck and with a neatly carved oval footrim, painted on the inside with on one main side a portrait of Dr. Li Shizhen, together with an inscription stating that Li was a famous doctor in China during the Ming Dynasty, who wrote the Compendium of Materia Medica (Bengcao Gangmu), with the signature Liu Shouben and dated Spring 1978; the reverse with a scholar in a sampan talking to a fisherman, who is holding a turtle aloft, with a child holding a net, with two ducks swimming beside them, and by lotus leaves and flowers, and underneath an overhanging willow tree, an inscription to one side with the signature Liu Shouben, and dated Spring 1978.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 730
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles. The Mary and George Bloch Collection. Hong Kong: Herald Intl., 2002, Volume 4, part 2, Inside Painted, pp. 594-595, no. 670 and pp. 596-597, no. 671

Provenance:

A private Connecticut Collection

 

Li Shizhen (July 3, 1518  – 1593), Dongbi, was a Chinese physician, pharmacologist, acupuncturist, and herbalist. After failing the official examination three times Li turned to medicine. Dr. Li spent twenty-seven years of his life writing and correcting the Compendium of Materia Medica during the Ming Dynasty. The Compendium is a text of 1,892 entries, detailing more than 1,800 Chinese medications. It included 1,100 illustrations and 11,000 prescriptions. It also described how to treat diseases using over 1,000 herbs. Sadly Dr. Li's work was largely overlooked during the Ming Dynasty and he spent so much time on it that he became rather unhealthy, and died before it was published.

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