Related stories

2006 'Arts from Our Land' Competition China's Int'l Arts and Entertainment Group Founded Day Trip for the New Year: See the Famous New Year's Paintings of Yangliuqing Labyrinths Comics and Contemporary Visual Arts 'Meet in Beijing' Arts Festival

Snuff Bottle and Interior Paintings

Tobacco and the snuff bottles are said to have originated in North America and spread all over the world by Columbus and other adventurers.

Snuff bottles with interior paintings did not come into being until late in the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1711–1799). There were four major schools of such bottles at that time, the Beijing, Shandong, Hebei and Guangdong schools. This piece will focus on the most representative pieces of the Beijing school and the artists Ma Shaoxuan (1867–1939) and his grandson Ma Zengquan (born ?).

During the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), the use of snuff became popular throughout China. In the beginning, because of the smooth surface on glass and crystal, craftsmen could only paint simple pictures, mainly images of grasshoppers, Chinese cabbages, simple landscapes with a few strokes and simple figures. Later, craftsmen learned to fill the bottles with iron sand and emery, then shake it and scrub it just like paper. They could then paint the bottles in great detail. Beijing craftsman preferred to use combined images involving pictures, words and seals, which marks them as being of the Beijing school style.

Ma Shaoxuan mastered perfect writing and painting skills in his boyhood. By accident, he started to explore the skill of writing and painting inside snuff bottles. In 1910–11, Ma was appointed to paint the emperor, the empress and four top ministers, marking the summit of Ma’s career as an interior painter. One of Ma Shaoxuan’s works was sold for nearly two million yuan (US$249,194) in Hong Kong’s snuff bottle auction in mid-2004.

Interior paintings by Ma Shaoxuan generally feature a portrait or landscape painting on one side and a related poem on the other side. His portraits featured rich, colourful layers and his writings follow the style of the master calligrapher Ouyang Xun.

Ma Shaoxuan’s sons did not become interior painters, but they both mastered good writing and painting skills. Ma Zengquan inherited these skills. Ma taught himself interior painting, using just a few of Ma Shaoxuan’s snuff bottles as models.

Ma Zengquan admitted that his first work took more than five months to complete, because he had to try again and again to get it right. He joked that, “It was a ‘marathon’ snuff bottle.”

After tens of years of devotion, Ma Zengquan has now mastered the skills of interior painting and has produced more than 100 works, all collected by industry insiders. What’s more, he draws perfect interior portrait paintings, as shown in the XXX.

For more information and comment, write to lastword@btmbeijing.com.