Lot 323. An unusual inside-painted glass snuff bottle, signed Ma Shaoxuan, dated dingyou year (1897). Estimate USD 8,000 - USD 10,000 © Christie's Images Ltd 2017

The bottle is decorated on one side with a figure in a sampan fishing within a mountainous landscape interspersed with a few huts. The reverse has a long inscription which incorporates the date, first month of dingyou, and the poem Lou Shi Ming ('A Eulogy On My Humble Abode'), followed by the name and seal of the artist. 2 ½ in. (6.4 cm.) high

Provenance: Robert Kleiner, London, 2007.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 4647.

Note: Lou Shi Ming is a well-known poem by the Tang-dynasty poet Liu Yuxi (772-842) describing the joy of maintaining a cultured and refined spiritual life while living in a simple dwelling. For more discussion on the inside-painted snuff bottles by Ma Shaoxuan with the same subject and the translation of the excerpt seen on this present bottle (with an additional line, which can be translated as 'My companions are the most learned; there is not a single friend unversed in letters'), please see lot 323 in this catalogue.

Christie's. The Ruth and Carl Barron Collection of Fine Chinese Snuff Bottles: Part IV, 15 March 2017, New York, Rockefeller Center