An Inside-Painted Glass ‘Qin Qiong’ Snuff Bottle Ma Shaoxuan, Circa 1900

Yung Feng, Hong Kong, 1985.

Kleiner, 1994a, p. 42n.
Moss et al., 1996-2009, vol. 4, no. 605.

Minor surface wear to the mouth.
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The actor Tan Xinpei is shown here in the role of Qin Qiong (also known as Qin Shubao 秦叔寶), who spent his early career fighting to overthrow the Sui dynasty. He eventually rose to become a general in the early Tang and continued to be honoured by the emperor after he died in 638. He was also an important figure in much later works of historical fiction. The opera 'Selling the Horse' is centred on a situation in which the great hero finds himself stranded without money to pay his bill at an inn and is forced to sell his horse. Because he has been ill and unable to care for it properly, the horse is emaciated, and he is unable to find a buyer until a perceptive man named Shan Xiongxin 單雄信recognizes the quality of the steed. But before the deal is consummated, Shan receives word that his brother has been shot by the Tang founder, Li Yuan 李淵. Qin allows Shan to race off on his horse without paying. The only things of value the Qin has left are his prized weapons, a pair of heavy riding-crop-like rods that are used like maces for clubbing or whacking (they are called shuangjian 雙簡 in Chinese). This bottle pictures him with these weapons. Fortunately, two other heroes of the age who are Qin’s admirers find him and get him out of his predicament. All of these people were historical figures, but the incidents have no analogue in their official biographies (and many details of geography and commerce are from the Ming and Qing dynasties). None of which matters: Tan Xinpei’s performance of the role made him the equivalent of today’s mega-star. A saying of the time was that the people of Beijing had no time to concern themselves with the rise or fall of their country; everyone in the whole city was competing in shouting his stage name.

Portraits of Tan in the role of Qin Qiong are in the J & J Collection dated the fourth lunar month of 1900 (Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, no. 424); in Sotheby's Hong Kong, 3rd May 1995, lot 653, dated the fifth lunar month of 1900; and in Hamilton 1977, G. 4 on p. 85, where no details of date or inscription are given. There is also one undated example recorded. It seems that Ma became heavily involved with these opera images in the years 1899 and 1900, and since the only other dated examples of the Qin Qiong subject date from 1900, one may assume that the undated examples were also painted about the same time, although a phonograph record of Tan Xinpei’s singing of this role was released in 1907 and may have increased interest in the subject.

An intriguing feature of the Qin Qiong portraits is that while three of them show him with the weapons in his left hand and the sash held out to his right, this one and the Hamilton example (both, incidentally of a narrower format) reverse this arrangement, with the sash held out to his left and the weapons in the right hand. This is unusual for Ma. Once he had established an image, he tended to stick to it. Perhaps he changed the image to improve it at some time, but since the dates are unknown for either of the exceptions, one cannot tell which version is the improved one, although this and the Hamilton bottle are likely to be the later versions. The ones with the weapons in the left hand show both legs and are a very even, balanced composition but with the red sash balanced mainly by the maces. Here, only one leg is shown through the robes, and that slight asymmetry in the body helps to better balance the maces and sash.

This example is in studio condition and one of the best known; it is perhaps the most impressive of the three opera subjects. Little details like the brown of the trousers seen above the black boots and the blue of the inner lining of the robe balancing the splashes of blue in the collar seen through the beard are a superbly balanced, abstract formal and colourful dance of considerable power. There is another unusual departure for Ma here in the use of gold paint for the handles of Qin Qiong's maces.

The poem on the other side of the bottle is unrelated to the portrait.

          Buying ‘spring’ for a jade bottle;

          Enjoying rain in a thatched cottage;

          Fine gentlemen as company;

          Tall bamboo right and left.

          White clouds in a clearing sky;

          Hidden birds following each other.

          A reclining qin in green shade;

          High above a waterfall in flight....

These are the first eight of twelve lines of the tetrasyllabic poem Dianya 典雅 (‘Decorous and Dignified’) in Sikong Tu’s 司空徒 Ershisi shipin 二十四詩品 (‘Twenty-four Categories of Poetry’), which describes in poetry all the desirable moods in poetic writing. The same poem appears on Sale 3, lot 27 as well and was probably one of a number of favourite pieces that Ma used at random when nothing more specific was required.