Chinese Snuff Bottle Discussion Forum 中國鼻煙壺討論論壇

I see folks spending good money on these fake portrait bottles all the time.. I can understand how someone could easily have stumbled upon, for example a legitimate Ma Shaoxuan portrait bottle with prices in the thousands, left believing  they are getting great deals on the many fake portrait bottles being offered. It can be easy to be deceived by these bottles at a distance.   

I think most who are on the forum or have been collecting for a while know the difference.

These comparisons will hopefully help the new unsuspecting collector see the difference..

We have talked about fake photo enhanced and photo outlined images being superimposed (http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,25.0.html) to the interior before.. The same superimposed images are used on these.. Then someone simply applies a few brush strokes of black paint to the highlight the eyes, eye brows, beards, lips, hair, etc, in an effort to enhance the already faded and out of focus enhanced image.

For the most part these fake bottles are all the same shape and size, which in itself draws a red flag as these bottles are new, not Early or Middle Period glass bottles. 

(https://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1270.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fjj612%2Fsnuffbottlesplus%2Fportrait2_zpsd4b5fed2.jpg&hash=f4158a9de30071cf0b5b1c7d62473b1c) (https://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1270.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fjj612%2Fsnuffbottlesplus%2Fportrait3_zpseb9af932.jpg&hash=8e05cdfa7a1f3729214c2835d7056e05)

Compared to a legitimate Middle Period glass bottle...

(https://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1270.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fjj612%2Fsnuffbottlesplus%2Fportrait5_zpsfde15fd1.jpg&hash=369c61aed9804100ea896caef558f194)

Look closely at this portrait. Overall, the image is faded, and the photo used, after applied to the interior is out of focus as a result of the process used to apply it.  You can see how brush strokes of black paint are stroked into the eyes, eye brows, nostrils, hair, beard, lips etc..

(https://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1270.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fjj612%2Fsnuffbottlesplus%2Fportrait1_zpsb708bd64.jpg&hash=58338f67b321db4295e6953c6e0d0cc0)

Now compare to a painted portrait.. It is easy to see how crisp and well defined as a result of being 100% painted..

(https://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1270.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fjj612%2Fsnuffbottlesplus%2Fportrait4_zps17448ad4.jpg&hash=258b41b834154d26b03b49c3a9c7a924)

Hope this helps !

Thank you for sharing, as a novice myself, it is easy to be fooled, but I have learnt something today that may aid in spotting a fake.

Kaz

Dear George,
thank you very much for this excellent lesson!!
Giovanni

Yes, nice one George. Very helpful in knowing what to look for. You should never buy a bottle without some form of magnification. One of the worst bottles I ever bought was in the dark at 6oc in the morning. ::) You live and learn. ;D

Dear George,
   Well done. I didn't notice this thread before.
Shabbat Shalom,
Joey

Dear George,

Since the last Time I visited this post I have been on eBay  and have seen a number of photo printed  bottles, This is undoubtedly the most useful lesson learnt in the last few years. Thank you so much.  ;) Jason.

Hi  George

Can  you please  merge  this  thread   with the  main thread on  photo-faked  bottles   which  goes  back a  long way  (  2  years  + ) ?

Cheers

Peter

I thought about that when I first started this separate topic Peter..

But, since it is a little different, in that it is related to a particular type of portrait bottles, plus I have linked to it from within other sites, I sort of have to leave it separate from the other topic.

Great post George!
I must admit, I hadn't read it before you hi-lighted it for our newcomer Charles this weekend.

Tom

George,

thanks for the update. Like Joey, I must have also missed the March 2014 post.

Inn Bok

Hi George,

I think I saw one of the fake on Rubylane once, was that the one someone paid 1400 for?

Thank you for the info here, I was actually lamenting that it might be real even if the calligraphy looks odd. This post basically saved me 1500! I was planning to buy one if I ever see it by his nephew.

Big thank you!

David

Dear David,
      I can 'save'  you  US$ 1500, too!  ;D
Ma Shaoxian never did portrait bottles!  ;)
Best,
Joey

Dear Joey,

That's a nice piece of info. But I have yet to see Ma ShaoXian's work in his prime.

Cheers,
YT

Hi Joey,

I will keep that in mind.

Will he always sign his piece? I know some old artist have multiple names or "nickname" that they use. Does he sign in different names?

Do you know roughly how many of his bottles are know?

Thanks,
David

Although this and the other thread on photo faked bottles have had nothing added fro a while I thought I would add my experiences.

I recently bought 6 bottles, unseen, from an auction via online bidding. It was a regional auction house I hadn't come across before with a high number of lots to get through in the day. Hardly anything had a guide price as there was a lot of tat mixed in with some better stuff of which a fair amount was Chinese. There were around 12 bottles, only 3 had estimates, 2 of which I bought, the table bottle with cover and the agate bottle with carved inclusions which was wrongly described as Peking glass and I bought at low estimate at low prices. The third bottle with an estimate was the star lot by some margin, an ornate bottle from the Imperial kilns with good provenance £20,000-£30,000 which sold at low estimate.

There were also some IP bottles with no estimate of which I bought 4 for not much. 2 bore signatures of Ma Shao Hsuan, one the portrait bottle and the other the horse bottle. Having just got the "Collectors Book of Snuff Bottles" I saw the portrait bottle and thought it looked like those by MSH in the book, checked the signature and thought "Hello early retirement" especially when the horse bottle had a MSH signature as well. They did not claim anything and were simply described as IP portrait bottle with calligraphy on reverse, IP bottle of horse with calligraphy on reverse etc.

What made me wonder was the one expensive bottle, the apparently carved cinnibar stopper on the portrait bottle an the mis-described Peking/agate bottle, were they all from the same deceased estate and only the ornate bottle was considered to have value. The horse bottle and man on buffalo bottle looked somewhat hazy in the pictures, especially the buffalo one which I wasn't going to buy as it looked wrong. In the end I bought all 4 as the prices were low which told me alot as bidding started.

Before collecting them I was suspicious enough to search for faked MSH bottles which lead me to this forum.

On collection the portrait bottle was immediately too light but looked okay under a loupe. All 4 bottles had traces of snuff/curry powder/ground seasoning cubes in them. All bottles except the "man with geese" looked somewhat fuzzy which wasn't helped by the snuff.

The "Man with geese" seems to be signed by Chang Wen-t'ang who painted in the modern period which could be right.

The other 3 looked a bit fuzzy as the bottles were not polished on the outside, especially the horse and the buffalo ones so cheap bottles. The worst looking one was the buffalo one which had ridges on the sides where the bottle was off poor quality.

All bottles were turned upside down and the snuff cleaned out with cotton buds which made them look better. Using a loupe I still couldn't really see any dotting or pixels in the portrait bottle and the horse and buffalo bottles seemed to be real IP bottles.

I didn't want to take the route the "Pretty Lady" suffered in the other thread and went the other way. I took out my multi tool, attached a polishing wheel, applied some cutting compound and polished the horse and buffalo bottles and since I bought them they have been somewhat transformed by cotton bud and polishing, shame I didn't take before and after pictures.

The latest I have learned is the date on the portrait bottle is wu-chen so 1988, 1928 or 1868, my guess is whoever did the bottle correctly dated it ie 1988. There is a similar bottle available with a different portrait but dated the same and with the same calligraphy beside the portrait which, I assume, identifies the person although they are very different people.  The horse bottle is dated i-mao so 1975, 1915 or 1855 so again may have been correctly dated to 1975. I haven't looked into the signature or date of the buffalo bottle yet.

So fake bottles with a possibly correct date for when they were done and seemingly proper IP done on the horse and buffalo bottles. The plot thickens.

Sorry for the long post.

KInd regards,

Adrian.

 

Just returned to check if my re sizing of the pictures worked and clearly it didn't so I will have another go which should make things clearer.

Regards, Adrian

Second attempt, fingers crossed.

Dear Adrian, this last try is worst, too big pictures, the previous one was perfect I think. Why do you think that it was not good? The best size is about 800 -900 pixels maximum.
Kind regards
Giovanni

In a short answer... All of the above are falsely signed, fake, and or modern..  It is almost hard to believe there would be any bottles of any significance within the entire auction. I am going to take a leap of faith without looking at the Imperial piece with good provenance is not far off from the other bottles you shared..

I am really glad you found the information via the forum regarding the faked IP's.. Hopefully that information will save you a few dollars in the future ..

Wish I could be even a little optimistic about the bottles shown, but at least you are taking the time to compare and learn... !

Dear Adrian,

     Personally I liked the FAKE Ding Erzhong almost as much as the FAKE Ma Shaoxuans!  ;D ::)
Basically, all the bottles in the post are fake.
Best
Joey

Hi Giovanni,

The first images didn't show the whole bottles which was what I wanted to do. I had cropped a central area from each picture instead of resizing the whole picture but previewing the images before I uploaded them showed the whole image not the cropped image which is strange.

The second lot of pictures had been re sized and saved to file, just not the file I thought they were in so I uploaded from the file I thought they were in which clearly was in the original large pixel format.

I have given myself a severe telling off and grounded myself until Friday meaning I mustn't leave the house after 8 PM until then and promise to check image sizes before posting more pictures.

Regards, Adrian

Hi George and Joey,

I was under no illusions when I was actually bidding for 3 of the bottles that they were not genuine bottles by the artists that the signatures on the bottles suggested they were by but as the prices were low and they held some interest to me I bought them as much to be able to study them as anything else. All 6 that I bought will stay in my growing collection, certainly for the time being anyway, because they don't owe me much money wise and have varying appeal even if that appeal may be as examples of fakes.

The portrait bottle is perhaps the most disappointing bottle to me because it is an example of intended deception and yet the work involved in producing it and methods employed take some time and skill. The people who made it hoped to be rewarded with a price paid that was higher than the work and skill justified which is when it matters but as I paid little for it expecting it to be fake then the deception matters less. It does however point to worrying developments in the use of some photographic method of deception as highlighted in the other thread.

The Horse and Buffalo bottles disappoint in a different way, I am disappointed for the artists that painted them because they deserved a better bottle and I intend to keep polishing them until the outside of the glass is clear which it still isn't. You see cheap tourist fodder on offer on ebay in better bottles with very basic painting inside up at prices that are not justified.

The point of my initial post was to give another example of a photo faked bottle and I will zoom in with a macro lens to look closely at it in detail. As suggested by George, there is painting added to eyebrows for example to "add" to the deception and looking inside the bottle with a loupe shows those black lines clearly. In normal IP the detail of black lines is added first and if a flesh tone was painted for the face it would lightly cover the detail line and dull the intensity of the black detail which isn't the case in these bottles.

Regards, Adrian.

Funny thing... I just intentionally bought one as well to study..  It is only an inch tall and I think a photo technique was used to create the dark outlines and then blotted the paint in after.  I have not used the microscope on it yet..  Will share it later ..

Hi George,

As my smallest bottle is a nice little malachite one at 1.5 inches that is dwarfed by all the others I'm interested to see what an inch high one is like, let alone one that has had some photo technique used on it.

I had wondered if my MSH horse bottle had some photo technique used for the calligraphy as per the portrait bottle as it looked very well rendered but I can confirm it's very much real as I have smudged a small bit of one character with a cotton bud which now has ink/paint on the end of it.

Now I've confirmed it's all properly painted and it's looking better as I have polished the glass more so the painting is properly revealed I'm starting to become somewhat fond of my MSH fake and as I said before, what an incredible shame that someone who has a clear talent resorted to painting in a cheap opaque bottle which was made worse by the snuff/fake snuff that was covering the inside. I suspect a student at some IP school who wanted to make a bit of money in his spare time but could only afford a cheap bottle to paint in.

I've seen at auction over here older IP bottles that have been described as painted in a given year but in a bottle that was older than the painting. Makes you wonder what is possible in terms of faking if older bottles with bad watercolour inside paintings are cleaned and a talented forger let loose on them.

Regards, Adrian.

That was one reason I bought it.. To have a look and see if they could really do a technique in this small a bottle..  I will get the scope out a little later...  But spending a little time first with a new bottle that arrived today ..

Here is the one inch bottle..

Dear Adrian,

     I must correct my prior, tongue in cheek comment. The bottles signed Ding Erzhong and Ma Shaoxuan are fake; I was only looking at those, I must admit.
The obviously modern bottles might well be genuine (painted by the person who signed the bottle) and quite good.

    I am travelling (I just arrived in Taipei, Taiwan), so I have been trying to limit my time on the Forum, so i can meet people 'live' and see things live.  ::)
Best,
Joey

Indeed they did photo process the dark outlines. There are no brush strokes at all.. It also appears the same on the calligraphy side. I think it was photo processed as well. It looks like the seal was actually painted, and appears to have been painted in prior to the photo process.

Seems pretty amazing for such a small surface, even for a photo process .. Although maybe it is not any more complicated than a larger bottle.

Dear George,
I have not followed the Forum for the
last few weeks when I was in Perth. Just returned
home yesterday and read about this post of yours.
Could you send the picture of the one-inch bottle
( original format ) to my email ? Please ensure all
the Chinese characters are included.
From the picture you posted on the Forum, it might
appear to be a hand painted bottle, but of inferior
quality. It was faking Ma's work. The artist's
calligraphy said that it was presented to Mr Mei
Nan Fang, master of Peking Opera.
Regards,
Inn Bok

Welcome back Inn Bok !

I have given this to my new born Granddaughter.  Also have since removed the pics from my computer.

Next time I am in the city to visit, I will take some pictures and send to your email..

George,
I forgot to add that the lesser artist dated it
( on the calligraphy face ) as Republic 15th
year, which was 1926 !
When I get to my computer, I will upload two
miniature IP bottles for sharing.

Inn Bok

Great information and well done! I had no idea. I am fortunate not to have bought one.

Hi George

Is it  possible  (and sensible) to  merge  this  thread  into  the   very  much  bigger  Fake Photo Inside Painted Chinese Snuff Bottles   thread ?

The  reason I ask  is that    I just  tried  to  find the  Fake Photo Inside Painted Chinese Snuff Bottles   thread  using the  search   bar,  and  I could  not  find  it ,  until  after  a  lot of  work,    because  the  key  words  like  "fake"  and  "Photo"  go  directly   to the  Photo Fake Inside Painted "Portrait" Snuff Bottles thread

Cheers

Peter

I have not been able to merge topics for some time.  I can not explain why it will not work any longer..