Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 9. (Budapest, 1966)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM — MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Polonyi, Péter: Some Inside-Painted Chinese Snuff Bottles

the inscription „Shui-mang ts'ao"

32 (Fig. 9.). According to the story, the consumers of the decoction made of the poisonous plant shui-mang are irretrievably doomed to death, but cannot take part in the transmigration of souls as long as they have not killed somebody else in a similar way instead of themselves. Our bottle represents just the scene, when the hero drops into a hut on the roadside and is poisoned there with such tea by two souls disguised in humans. Translated by Giles, the passage involved reads as follows: ,,A young man named Chu was on his way to visit a sameyear friend of his, when he was overtaken by a violent thirst. Suddenly he came upon an old woman sitting by the roadside under a shed and distributing tea gratis, and immediately walked up to her to get a drink. She invited him into the shed, and presented him with a bowl of tea in a very cordial spirit ; but the smell of it did not seem like the smell of ordinary tea, and he would not drink it, rising up to go away. The old woman stopped him and called out ,,San-niang! bring some good tea!" Immediately a young girl came from behind the shed, carrying in her hands a pot of tea. She was about fourteen or fifteen years old, and of very fascinating appearance, with glittering rings and bracelets on her fingers and arms. As Chu received the cup from her his reason fled ; and drinking down the tea she gave him, the flavour of which was unlike any other kind, he proceeded to ask for more."

33 On the other side there is a carefully painted colourful scene with three figures taken from the play „The West Chamber", with the inscription "Hsi hsiang" (Fig. 10.). Since Meng Tzu-shou was working until 1914 and the figurai compositions are representative of the second phase of his activity,

34 the bottle in question must have been probably made about 1910. The third and declining period of snuff bottle painting is characterized by mass products of poorer quality, which are following the old themes though mostly fail to be signed and dated.

35 Part of our unsigned and undated bottles can be ranged into this group. Despite its nice form, the glass bottle Nr. 53.388 represents a figurai scene and a landscape of comparatively poor quality. The broken bottle Nr. 50.394 represents roughly painted horses, with the only curiosity that the part between the horses is completely transparent without as much as a trace of etching to be seen. The goldfish painted in the ,,hairy crystal" bottle Nr. 50.402 is suggestive of the works of Yeh Chung-san. Maybe it was painted by his son. On the square-bottomed glass bottle Nr. 750, a black glass border is moulded over plain glass. The picture shows butterflies, insects, flowers and birds. It seems to be somewhat earlier than the other unsigned and undated pieces. Cammann mentions this technique to be characteristic of Pi Yung-chiu belonging to the later representatives of the first period, who dated his works most unfrequently (unfortunately, he fails to mention whether he signed them or not);

36 so, it is possible that this piece was made by him. The steadily increasing interest focussed in recent years on snuff bottles has already resolved many problems of this interesting branch of industrial art and we may certainly expect to obtain still many more answers. However, it is not enough to rely solely upon material outside of China and on possibly 32 Pu Sung-ling : Ibid. p. 59. 33 Giles: Ibid. pp. 84 — 88. XVII. 34 Cammann H JAS p. 323. 35 Cammann OA p. 89. 36 Cammann H JAS p. 321.