AN INSIDE-PAINTED ROCK CRYSTAL SNUFF BOTTLE
Wang Xisan
Signed and dated wuchen year, corresponding to 1968
Of rectangular shape with raised panels, painted on one side with a figure, probably Meng Haoren, riding through a winter landscape followed by his attendant who may be clutching a prunus spray, but with the pink blossoms of a prunus nearby, the reverse with a figure outside a thatched house amidst trees, below a title, Xue Jing (Snowy View); stopper.
2 1/8in (5.5cm) high
Footnotes:
戊辰年(1968) 王習三 水晶内畫雪景人物鼻煙壺

Provenance:
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd., 27 April 1983

Exhibited:
International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, New York, 5-9 November 2013, no. 22

For further discussion of the subject of Meng Haoran from the novel Sanguo yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), see Ka Bo Tsang, 'Who is the Rider on the Donkey? Some New Observations,' ICSBS Journal, Summer 1994, pp. 8-10.

For another quartz bottle of identical shape and crystalline structure by Wang Xisan painted with a subject of cats and cyclically dated to 1972, see Bonhams, New York, Chinese Snuff Bottles from American Collections, 13 November 2017, 8015.

A larger example from the Crane Collection with the same subject on the side is illustrated on the website www.thecranecollection.com., no. 904.