AN INSIDE-PAINTED CRYSTAL 'HONGLOU MENG' SNUFF BOTTLE YE ZHONGSAN, 1906

Robert Kleiner, London, 2000.

The outer mouth has a chip of approx. 0.4 by 0.6 cm. The inside painting, however, has been very well preserved.
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The scene of Daiyu playing the qin comes from chapter 87 of the novel, which is also known as Honglou meng 紅樓夢. In that episode, Baoyu and the Buddhist nun Miaoyu 妙玉 (in the masterful translation by David Hawkes and John Minford, she is named Adamantina) both listen to Daiyu’s playing without revealing their presence, but this depiction eliminates Miaoyu and adds a maid attending on Daiyu.

The other scene is probably from chapter 35; the maid is surely Zijuan 紫鵑 (Nightingale), Lin Daiyu’s chief maid.

In 1906 Ye Zhongsan was still working alone, without the assistance of any of his sons. The years from 1895 until about 1912 were among his most fruitful, if not his most prolific, since works from those years are rarer, of course, than when he had extra helping hands to increase output.