AN INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE BAI LANGCHEN, QING DYNASTY, 1894-1940

with a slightly concave lip and a recessed convex foot surrounded by a protruding rounded footrim, painted with a continuous scene of a scholar on a donkey, followed by an attendant on foot, approaching a plank bridge across a small stream, on their way to a small group of houses in a mountainous landscape with various trees, including what appears to be a willow, inscribed in regular script, ‘Executed by Bai Langchen,’ with one seal of the artist, Bai, in negative seal script; with a glass stopper

Christie’s London, 5th December 1994, lot 403.  

Christie's, London, 1999.

Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 4, Hong Kong, 2000, no. 564.

The snuff bottle is in very good condition. Apart from traces of snuff staining on the interior, the condition of the painting is also good. The colour of the snuff bottle ground is not as pink as the illustration would suggest in the catalogue, and is more white.
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The landscape is one of Bai Langchen's finest examples, and he has restricted his brushwork to an integrated, rustic style that depends little upon the strength of individual, calligraphic lines as used by Ding Erzhong, for instance. The composition is well put together and provides an effective idealized setting for the mounted scholar.

All of his undated works simply say Bai Langchen zuo (Executed by Bai Langchen), with the exception of a 1930 bottle formerly in the Marian Mayer Collection inscribed Bai Langchen ouzuo (Executed by chance by Bai Langchen). Otherwise, his dated bottles give only the barest information as to the year and, sometimes, the month of painting. Nowhere in his output does he mention where he painted, although we know that he lived in Beijing.