AN INSIDE-PAINTED CRYSTAL 'LIU HAI' SNUFF BOTTLE YE ZHONGSAN, 1903

Jade House, Hong Kong, 1985.

Robert Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, British Museum, London, 1995, cat. no. 407.
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. 525.

Bottle: Minute chip on the inner lip and possible smoothing to the outer lip in one area. Natural icy flaws throughout. Surface abrasions from use. Painting: Good condition.
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This is another crystal bottle almost certainly made for Ye to paint. It is of similar shape to Sale 6, lot 178, where reasons are given for this conclusion, and it is also exaggeratedly flat, which is ideally suitable for painting. Inside it, Ye has quite faithfully copied Zhou Leyuan’s landscape style (see, for instance, Sale 8, lot 1098, and lot 25in the present sale), although he has made his two figures a little larger in scale. It would not pass for one of Zhou’s works, but it is much closer than Sale 7, lot 112, where Ye has made no attempt to imitate the style, but only the content of Zhou’s landscapes.

On the other side is a subject that Ye appears to have painted in 1902 the first time.

Again, it is a case of Ye having absorbed Zhou’s style and re-expressed it in a manner entirely his own. There could be no question of the authorship of this painting even without an identifying signature.

The toad in this case is an impressive-looking creature not far off the size of Liu Hai himself if his upper body is anything to go by, and this is the standard image used by Ye in painting the subject.