AN INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS 'EIGHT IMMORTALS' SNUFF BOTTLE BI RONGJIU, 1901

Kaynes-Klitz Collection.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 16th November 1989, lot 182.

Robert Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, British Museum, London, 1995, cat. no. 432.
Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1997.
Christie’s London, 1999.

Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 4, Hong Kong, 2000, no. 655.

Bottle: Insignificant chip to the inner foot rim. Possible smoothing to the corners of the side and front panels. Painting: Good condition.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This is typical of Bi Rongjiu’s distinctive figure-painting style, which is represented widely in his overall output. It is also a style that was passed on to the other artists and, when gradually miniaturized in the post-1949 period by the likes of Li Kechang 李克昌, evolved into the modern Shandong figure style, which is so impressive technically. This is Bi at his best, with a charming subject of the Eight Immortals paying tribute to the Star God, Shou Lao. It is executed as a simple line-drawing with filled-in colours, in a rather folk-art manner, but done with extreme confidence. Bi Rongjiu obviously knew how to put a decent picture together and did so with considerable confidence.

He was never a master calligrapher, although he was perfectly willing to write out long passages when he chose to and seemed quite uninhibited despite his lack of calligraphic mastery. Here he suggests a debt to Ma Shaoxuan 馬少宣 in the way he has spread his inscription out over the reverse side of the main picture. The excerpt here does not begin at the beginning but with the last two characters of the third column of the original (that is to say, the third column of the copies that faithfully reproduce the long-lost original); it ends at the end of the seventh column. For a full translation, see Sale 1, lot 28; Lin Yutang’s elegant translation for the portion on this bottle is

Here are tall mountains and majestic peaks, trees with thick foliage and tall bamboos. Here are also clear streams and gurgling rapids, catching one’s eye from the right and left. We group ourselves in order, sitting by the water-side, and drink in succession from a cup floating down the curving stream; and although there is no music from string and woodwind instruments, yet with alternate singing and drinking we are well disposed to thoroughly enjoy a quiet, intimate conversation.

Here are tall mountains and majestic peaks, trees with thick foliage and tall bamboos. Here are also clear streams and gurgling rapids, catching one’s eye from the right and left. We group ourselves in order, sitting by the water-side, and drink in succession from a cup floating down the curving stream; and although there is no music from string and woodwind instruments, yet with alternate singing and drinking we are well disposed to thoroughly enjoy a quiet, intimate conversation.

The dedication on this work is to Zishou, someone with the same name as the inside-painter Meng Zishou (see lot 74 in the present sale), and it is possible that this was made for ‘our’ Meng, but if so, it was done three years before Meng began to produce his first serious, dated paintings. Bi Rongjiu may have gone to Beijing with the merchant Wang Zi 王滋, who supplied the Beijing artists with glass bottles from Boshan and learned enough about the art to coach Bi and the others who developed the Boshan school of inside painting. Bi was apparently quite famous in Beijing and is reputed to have had an audience with Cixi, who prized his work, so he had opportunities to meet Meng Zishou; but the fact that he was so senior to Meng Zishou in the practice of the art forces one to reserve judgment on whether the present bottle was dedicated to the inside painter or not.