1904年 丁二仲作玻璃內畫「九如圖」鼻煙壺 《甲辰冬仿華易山氏法孔安方伯大人鈞鑑》款

藝華行，香港，1985年

Robert Kleiner，《Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch》，Sydney L. Moss Ltd，倫敦，1987年，編號263
《Les plus belles collections privées de Hong-Kong》，Galeries Lafayette，巴黎，1990年，頁11
《Kleine Schätze aus China. Snuff bottles—Sammlung von Mary und George Bloch erstmals in Österreich》，Creditanstalt，維也納，1993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306
新加坡國家博物館，新加坡，1994-1995年
Robert Kleiner，《Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch》，大英博物館，倫敦，1995年，編號394
《Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch》，以色列博物館，耶路撒冷，1997年
倫敦佳士得，1999年

《Ceramics》，1986年5/6月，頁142，圖4
《國際中國鼻煙壺協會學術期刊》，1988年春，封面
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

Bottle: Good condition. Painting: Good condition.
"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 source of the ‘Nine Likenesses’ is ‘Heaven’s Blessings,’ a poem collected in Shijing (‘The Book of Songs’). The two stanzas that refer to the ‘Nine Likenesses’ are as follows, as translated by Arthur Waley, with the restoration of one like he dropped and the nine ‘likes’ in italics:

天保定爾，以莫不興。如山如阜，如岡如陵。如川之方至，以莫不增。······ˉ如月之恒，如日之升。如南山之壽，不騫不崩。如松柏之茂，儀不爾或承。

May Heaven guard and keep you,
Cause there to be nothing in which you do not rise higher,
Like the mountains, like the uplands,
Like the ridges, [like] the great ranges,
Like a stream coming down in flood;
In nothing not increased..............
To be like the moon advancing to its full,
Like the sun climbing the sky,
Like the everlastingness of the southern hills,
Without failing or falling,
Like the pine tree, the cypress in their verdure —
All these blessings may you receive!

This is another of Ding’s great masterpieces and one of his finest landscape paintings; its quality is matched by others, including several in this collection, but never bettered. It represents Ding at the height of his technical and aesthetic skills. Every stroke, every wash, every element of the landscape is achieved with consummate confidence and perfection. One only has to look at the superbly washed distant line of peaks set beneath the inscription to grasp the transcendent quality of the painting. In Chinese painting, such distant peaks were often achieved by loading the brush with water and then dipping just the point into ink or colour and drawing the obliquely held body of the brush along the shapes of the peaks so that the darker ink defines their upper limits and the stroke fades to a watery wash to represent mist at the foot of the peaks. It is difficult enough to achieve with such perfection with a brush on paper, but a bamboo pen cannot be loaded with varying ink tones in this manner, nor can it be held horizontal to the paper in order to allow the ink tones to modulate naturally from dark to light. To achieve the same thing in a snuff bottle, the artist must wet the area in the shape of the peaks, and then, while the area is still wet, add dark ink or colour just along the upper lines of the peaks. Here it is breathtakingly well done. Every other element of the painting is as convincingly and compellingly painted.

The rock forms are wonderfully delineated with fluid modelling strokes that express themselves as forceful soloists in the aesthetic dance of the brush. Another of the inner languages that Ding commanded so well here is to be seen in the colouring of the rocks, which have been done primarily to abstract ends. Some are blue, some sepia, and some a mixture of the two, but if one mentally closes down pictorial content and reads them as abstract form they are, again, breath-taking. The paler sepia rocks also pick up the dance of the foreground trunks of trees in this abstract equation, and the shallows and reed banks form a horizontal foil to the jutting rock forms.

Here Ding signs with his other name, Ding Shangyu. This, or its shorter form where the ‘Shang’ is implied but not written, appears in the very first year of his recorded works, 1893 (see Hui and Sin 1994, no. 207). In some books on seal carving, which was another of Ding’s skills, the name is given as Shanggeng 尚庚, but it is quite clear from the many occurrences on his snuff bottles that the correct reading is Ding Shangyu 尚庾. Even more rarely, the name is written Shanggeng 上庚, but this does not appear on the snuff bottles or on Ding’s few known paintings and calligraphy.