AN INSIDE-PAINTED ROCK CRYSTAL SNUFF BOTTLE
Wang Xisan
Signed Yihu Zhai (One Bottle Studio) and dated gengxu year, corresponding to 1970 followed by the seal Ji
painted on one main face with a portrait of Hua Tuo the so-called founder of Chinese medicine and on the reverse with a butterfly hovering beside a slender day-lily springing from rockwork, low-relief lion-mask ring handles to the narrow sides; stopper.
2 3/8in (6cm) high
Footnotes:
庚戌年（1970）王習三 水晶内畫華佗像鼻烟壺 《一壺齋》款

Provenance:
Alice B. McReynolds
Sotheby's, New York, The Alice B. McReynolds Collection, Part II, 16 April 1985, lot 176

Exhibited:
International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, New York, 5-9 November 2013, no. 33

Wang Xisan used the seal Ji while working at Hengshui under the One Bottle Studio banner (a short form for the character meaning Hebei province).

For a slightly smoky crystal bottle by Wang Xisan with the identical subject though a different inscription and dated 1969, see Hugh M. Moss, An Exhibition of Chinese Snuff Bottles, London, June, 1970, p. 87, no. 363.

See Christie's, New York, 20-21 March 2014, lot 2443 for another historical portrait of a similar date.