Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 9. (Budapest, 1966)
HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM — MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Polonyi, Péter: Some Inside-Painted Chinese Snuff Bottles
Fig. 9. Meng Tzu-shou: Inside-painted snuff bottle (No. 3268) (front) Fig. 10. Meng Tzu-shou: Inside-painted snuff bottle (No. 3268) (back) hidden written sources to answer every pertinent question. In the case of an art that is still alive in China, 37 it may be of particular importance to collect the traditions living among those who practise it. Since the apprentices and descendants of the earliest artists of this comparatively recent branch 38 are still 37 It appears from the article of Lii Chi that in 1957 there were still 5 — 6 persons who practised and endeavoured to continue this branch of painting adopted in Poshan of Province Shantung. In 1962 the present day snuff-bottle painter Yeh Peng-chih in China Reconstructs (XI. 10. pp. 24 — 25.) says he works in Peking Artcraft Research Institute, and has four students. Through the kindness of my colleague László Ferenczy who has made a study tour in October-November 1964 in the Chinese People's Republic, I have obtainded important informations. He has visited the Peking Applied Arts Factory built in 1960 and giving employment to 764 workers, manufacturing the products of arts that have been revived after 1949, and inspected the snuff bottle painting shop. Two men and a woman made the painting with the traditional small bamboo sticks with slightly curved ends. The bottles of traditional appearance were signed, and the name of Peking was figuring on them. One bottle was signed by Shovpen. According to his informations, a bottle takes 8 — 9 work-days to be finished. (Yeh Peng-chih says: )t A skilled artist needs from 10 to 15 days to do a bottle painting".) 38 According to the communication of Lii Ch'i, the only apprentice of the earliest Shantung vase-painter is still working. Yeh Peng-chih says he is a fourth generation in the snuff-bottle painting. László Ferenczy was told that there are persons working in the snuff bottle painting shop of Peking Applied Arts Factory whose families were practising this trade for three generations.
