1887年 料胎內畫「山水幼雛」圖鼻煙壺 周樂元製 《丁亥周樂元》款

with a slightly concave lip and a recessed convex foot surrounded by a protruding footrim, painted on one main side with a scholar seated in a boat beside the banks of a river beneath a clump of trees, one of which is a pine, with the roof of a country retreat visible beyond, and, across the river, with a waterfall emerging from the mountains beneath a bank of clouds, above which rise mountainous peaks, inscribed in cursive script dinghai Zhou Leyuan (‘[Executed] in the year dinghai [by] Zhou Leyuan’, corresponding to 1887), with one indecipherable seal of the artist, the other main side with two chicks on a grassy ground beneath flowering prunus branches; the jadeite stopper with a vinyl collar

Quek Kiok Lee 收藏，新加坡
倫敦蘇富比1988年6月6日，編號198

倫敦佳士得，1999年

Hugh Moss、Victor Graham 及曾嘉寶，《A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection》，卷4，香港，2000年，編號476

Bottle: There is a very faint nick on the outer lip, tiny nibbles to the inner lip and three minuscule chips to the outer footrim. Painting: There is some very slight snuff staining but otherwise the painting if close to its original condition. The actual colours are slightly warmer compared to the catalogue illsutration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The blue palette used on the present bottle was favoured by Zhou Leyuan during his middle years, and particularly from 1887 to 1890. Although the boat, the rooftop, and the tree trunks in the landscape scene are painted in a pale sepia colour, everything else, trees, grass, and distant mountains, is in blue or shades of black ink. On the other side, the blue palette is continued with the first appearance of a subject that is one of Zhou's more unusual ones, not so often repeated as many of his others: chicks.

The painting is still in excellent condition, so we can read it as originally intended, including the white blossoms on the prunus branches, but in this case we know it is not because the bottle has barely been used. In photographs taken by Hugh Moss in 1971, the bottle is obviously caked with snuff. It has since been meticulously cleaned to reveal the painting in its original splendour.

For another version of the rare chicks-and-prunus-branches subject by Zhou Leyuan, see another bottle from the Bloch collection, sold at Bonhams Hong Kong, 25th May 2011, lot 42, where the artist comes as close as he ever does to repeating a composition.  But although they are similar, there are sufficient differences to be certain that Zhou was not copying from a pattern book, as the Ye family did later. The chicks have quite different personalities and detailing, and the branches, although placed in the same top left-hand corner, are quite different, even apart from the obvious fact that one has white blossoms and one orange.