1893年 丁二仲作玻璃內畫「洞天一品」鼻煙壺 《癸巳二仲作》款

Robert Hall，倫敦，1989年

Robert Kleiner、楊伯達及 Clarence F. Shangraw，《盈寸纖研 ─ 瑪麗及佐治伯樂鼻煙壺珍藏》，香港藝術館，香港，1994年，編號299
新加坡國家博物館，新加坡，1994-1995年
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537

Bottle: Barely perceptible chip to the outer lip and outer footrim. Surface scratches and abrasions from use. Painting: Slight snuff staining, otherwise good condition.
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This is one of Ding’s earliest works, from the first year from which there  are recorded paintings. There are four known bottles from 1893. They are too accomplished to have been done while training in the medium, so perhaps he began to paint in the year before. Three of the four indicate no date within the year, and on the fourth, if there was a date indicated it was not recorded, and there is no photographic record of the bottle, so it is possible that all date from late in the year and that his training may have taken up the earlier part.

Both the painting and the calligraphy here exhibit some hesitancy compared to his later works, but it is, nonetheless, charming painting and the subject of the lady embracing the tree is an excellent work for an artist so new to the medium. It is also the smallest bottle it has been recorded by him, qualifying as a miniature.

This bottle has been attributed to Beijing and to the Xuannan district because of the inscription on Sale 4, lot 86, painted the following year.

Dongtian yipin, the inscription over the stone, is the name the great calligrapher Mi Fu 米芾 (1051 – 1107) gave to a Taihu stone that he worshipped daily. The stone depicted here is a rather whimsical depiction, as odd in its own way as the painting of the woman with a tree between her legs on the other side.