Four Wise Men

[wgeoff]

My offering this week is Four Wise Men.

Actually there are five portrait bottles, I'll leave you to decide which one is not wise. Here they are, in no special order







As usual, my objective is to know the artist and date. But I've progressed, I now think I can read the dates thanks to the help and ideas you have given. I think the dates are 1995 Confucius, 1996 Mao and 1997 the other three?

Confucius is a very simple portrait but the calligraphy looks good to me. I believe that Mao and Clinton are by the same artist, the first character being Lu but the second character defeats my wife. I particularly like the calligraphy on Mao, what I used to call Running Script. This is surely difficult to do well in inside-painting?

My favourite is Deng Xiao Ping, both as a person and as a bottle. I don't recollect seeing many of his portraits on bottles, a bit difficult to understand as he is surely the founder of modern China, but this one is particularly good. Presumably the bamboo has some meaning.

Hope you like them.
Geoff

[wgeoff]

Here are close-ups of the titles, in the same order

[Steven]

Dear Geoff,

Thank you for sharing another set wonderful bottles. All well done.if I have to choose,I like the 4th one best.

The first one is painted in 1995 by master Chen Runpu陈润璞.
http://snuffbottlecollector.com/chen_renpu/chen_renpu_0000.htm

The second one is painted in 1997 by Nan He Ju shi南合居士, which is a artname or a hao of the artist, I can't find more info than that.

The third one is painted in 1996 by Kang zhanyin康占营， Kang is good at portrait painting, If I remember it right, Inn Bok has some Kang bottles.
http://snuffbottlecollector.com/kang_zhan_ying/kang_zhan_ying_0.htm

The forth one is painted in 1997 by Dong hui董慧，Master Dong xue's younger sister, Dong Xue is more famous than Dong Hui, but Donghui herself is a master as well.
http://snuffbottlecollector.com/dong_xinhui/dong_xinhui_00.htm

The fifth one is painted in 1997 by by Kang zhanyin康占营 as well.

Thank you for sharing!

Steven

[wgeoff]

Thanks for all this info Steven, and I'm pleased to see I got the dates correct.

Geoff

[George]

Wonderful bottles and thank you for sharing !

[OIB]

Geoff + Steven,

Thanks for sharing.

I have only one Kang's bottle, portrait of the 11th President of USA ( James Polk ). It was painted in 1988.

By the way, Geoff, the first picture in your post was not Confucius. It was a famous Chinese poet Li Bai.

Inn Bok
Singapore

[OIB]

Geoff,

Pictures of my bottle by Kang  -  I think he painted a couple of portraits of US presidents.

Inn Bok

[wgeoff]

Thanks Inn Bok - I got the date right but the face wrong!! - very embarrassing

Geoff

[George]

My favourite is Deng Xiao Ping, both as a person and as a bottle. I don't recollect seeing many of his portraits on bottles, a bit difficult to understand as he is surely the founder of modern China, but this one is particularly good. Presumably the bamboo has some meaning.

Here is one on the  Snuff Bottle Collector site..