AN INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS 'WANG ZHAOJUN' SNUFF BOTTLE

Signed Meng Zishou, dated to the Summer of the Jiyou year corresponding to 1909 and of the period

Signed Meng Zishou, dated to the Summer of the Jiyou year corresponding to 1909 and of the period
Painted with two warriors on horseback jousting with each other in a mountainous landscape, with inscription and signature of the artist, the reverse with Wang Zhaojun on horseback led by a groom and with a banner lady in attendance, stopper.
6.8cm (2 5/8in) high. (2).

1909年 孟子受作玻璃內畫人物圖鼻煙壺

Provenance:
Parry Collection, London, and thence by descent

來源：
倫敦Parry家族收藏，並由後人保存迄今

The present lot depicts Wang Zhaojun, one of the 'four beauties of ancient China', being escorted to the frontier to marry Chanyu Huhanye of the Xiongnu empire in order to establish friendly relations with the Han dynasty. According to legend, along the way, the horse neighed, making Zhaojun extremely sad and unable to control her emotions at being sent to marry a barbarian.

See a related Meng Zishou bottle illustrating a scene from 'The Romance of the Three Kingdoms', illustrated by H.Moss, V.Graham and K.B.Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, Inside Painted vol.4, part II, Hong Kong, 2000, pp.512-513, no.636, which was later sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 26 May 2014, lot 1142. According to the authors 'from 1910 onwards Meng painted a series of figural subjects illustrating scenes from popular books', which therefore makes the present bottle a rare early example of Meng's work; see ibid., p.512.

Meng Zishou, who also went by the name Meng Zhaoxun, is another of the artists of the Beijing School of Zhou Leyuan. As a rule, Beijing school artists were influenced by Zhou Leyuan in their early years and then, later, might borrow from any of the other popular artists who were painting. Meng is no exception and he soon settled down to the influences of the Zhou Leyuan School. During his career, the influence of Ma Shaoxuan and Ye Zhongsan become obvious from 1905 onwards, but in his first year he seems to have been the only artist to hark back to the literati beginnings of the art for his inspiration.

壺呈扁瓶形，直口，溜肩斂腹。一面內畫昭君出塞，另一面內畫李陵大戰番將，並署「己酉夏日寫於京師習古山房孟子受作」款。

參考一例孟子受作內畫三國人物圖鼻煙壺，見於H.Moss、V.Graham、與K.B.Tsang著，《A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, Inside Painted》，卷四，香港，2000年，頁512-513，編號636，後於2014年5月26日售於香港蘇富比，拍品編號1142。依據上書第512頁，1910年起，孟子受創作了一系列以通俗故事人物為題材的內畫鼻煙壺，而本例無疑是孟氏存世較少的早期精品之一。

孟子受，又名孟昭勳，京派鼻煙壺內畫大師。京派畫師早期往往受週樂元繪畫風格影響，後逐漸博取眾家之長，孟氏亦不例外；其1905年後的作品逐漸體現出馬少宣、葉仲三等藝術風格，也是為數不多的回溯到文人藝術中尋求靈感的藝術家。