1905年 玻璃內畫「榮慶像」鼻煙壺 馬少宣作

《乙巳仲夏》、《馬少宣》款 「少宣」印

Lilla S. Perry
Bob C. Stevens
Sotheby's Parke Bernet1982年3月26日，編號216
Mei Ling 收藏
紐約蘇富比1984年3月15日，編號200

Hugh Moss、Victor Graham 及曾嘉寶，《A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection》，卷4，香港，2000年，編號591

It is in 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 early Ma Shaoxuan portrait was identified by Emily Byrne Curtis as depicting Rongqing (see JICSBS, Spring 1989, pp. 31 and 32). Curtis tracked down a photograph of Rongqing taken when he was appointed Minister of Ceremonies and Vice President of the Privy Council in the new cabinet for May 1911. There are other photos of him that confirm the identification, although none is the precise model for this bottle. One can synthesize the various dates given for Rongqing by saying he lived either c.1855 – 1912 or c.1859 – c.1916. A Mongol bannerman, he became a metropolitan graduate (jinshi) in 1886. In 1900, he joined Natong 那桐 (seeSale 6, lot 132, dated 1902) and others in Beijing to deal with the foreign powers in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion. When the Ministry of Education was established in 1905, he became its head. This bottle must have been commissioned to commemorate that honour.

The rhyming encomium is appropriate for Rongqing, who held several other posts in education as well. Everything in the text points to the importance of education in producing the next generation of great men.

          ‘After [a predecessor] has made manifest his virtue,

          There must come a man of accomplishment.’

          To one’s descendants one must transmit the Three Things;

          So they have ‘refined and solid qualities in equal measure.’

          ‘Sincere and truthful’, ‘honourable and careful’:

          The teacher’s admonitions are ‘written on the sash.’

          The chief ministers [of the early Tang], with their grand and lofty deeds,

          Came largely from the Fen and Yellow Rivers.

The first two lines are based on an assertion in an early historical work (the Zuozhuan 左傳) that if a sage makes his virtue manifest, even though he may not accomplish anything in his own generation, it leads to the appearance of people who have a deep understanding of how things should be done and are able to accomplish a great deal. These lines often appear in contexts that imply that the person being praised has built upon the moral excellence of his ancestors, but in this context the emphasis is undoubtedly on what will be accomplished by the generation now being educated under Rongqing. The Three Things in line 3 are the Six Virtues (knowledge, humaneness, sagacity, etc.), the Six Comportments (filial piety, friendship, harmony, etc.), and the Six Arts (ritual, musical performance, archery, etc.). The line on refined and solid qualities comes straight from the Analects of Confucius, as does the admonition to be ‘sincere and truthful’ in one’s words and ‘honourable and careful’ in one’s conduct and the expression ‘to write on the sash’ something that is to be remembered always. (We use the translations of James Legge as our point of reference for rendering these terms into English.) Lines 7 and 8 refer to the belief that disciples of Wang Tong 王通 (d. 617), a Confucian teacher in the area of the confluence of the Fen and Yellow Rivers, made up a significant proportion of the great ministers of the early Tang dynasty.

Ma became established as a portrait painter in the first decade of the twentieth century. This was a task made much easier by his early portrayal of high government officials, which led to a commission in 1911 to paint two portraits of the Xuantong emperor. A list of the portraits painted by Ma and known to his grandson would have made an impressive invitation list for a party. Apart from the Xuantong emperor and a number of high officials from the fading Qing dynasty and the ensuing republic, including Yuan Shikai, Ma painted Kaiser Wilhelm II, King George V and Queen Mary, King Ibn Sa‘ud of Arabia, and President and Mrs Woodrow Wilson of the United States. He also painted several Qing princes and a number of famous Beijing opera stars (see Ma Zengshan 1997, pp. 51–72 and Curtis 1980).