二十世紀初 馬少宣作玻璃內畫梁敦彥像鼻煙壺

Louis E. Wolferz 博士伉儷收藏
紐約蘇富比1980年10月3日，編號125
Gerd Lester 收藏，1986年

Robert Kleiner，《Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch》，Sydney L. Moss Ltd，倫敦，1987年，編號296
《Kleine Schätze aus China. Snuff bottles—Sammlung von Mary und George Bloch erstmals in Österreich》，Creditanstalt，維也納，1993年
倫敦佳士得，1999年

夏更起，〈Enameled Snuff Bottles Produced at the Palace Workshops〉，《國際中國鼻煙壺協會學術期刊》，1978年12月，頁10，圖28
Emily Byrne Curtis，《Reflected Glory in a Bottle: Chinese Snuff Bottle Portraits》，紐約，1980年，頁15，圖20
馬增善，《馬少宣與內畫藝術》，巴爾的摩，1997年，頁55，圖41

Liang Dunyan (1857 – 1924), a native of Guangdong, went with the Chinese Educational Mission to study in the United States until the mission was recalled in 1881. He eventually rose to become Minister of Foreign Affairs; in late 1910, he took his sons to the U.S. and left them in Hartford at the high school he had attended. When the 1911 Revolution broke out, he remained abroad. When he eventually returned, he worked for the restoration of the Qing but retired from politics when the mission proved hopeless. (See Edward J. M. Rhoads, Stepping Forth Into the World [Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011], and Curtis 1980 for more detailed information.)

This is one of a small number of Ma’s portraits that have no inscriptions whatsoever. This seems strange, as the bottles look incomplete and one cannot imagine that either Ma or his patrons would have ordered them that way when the standard for which Ma was famous was a painting on one side and a long inscription on the other. It is of course possible that this bottle was ordered without inscriptions, but it may also have remained unfinished. Dealing with the movers and shakers of a dynasty in turmoil during a period of intense political uncertainty must have been difficult at times. Such important and powerful people cannot have been easy to deal with, and if their attention was distracted by affairs of state from what was probably a minor indulgence for them, one might expect a few unfinished commissions. Perhaps whoever ordered this bottle provided the photograph but no suitable text for Ma to inscribe on the bottle, and it may never have been delivered.

There seems little doubt that this is among the earlier portraits, and Emily Byrne Curtis dates it to 1905–1910, although stylistically it seems that it might even be a little earlier.