Masters' Pieces - or Fakes?

[Pat - 查尚杰]

I second that emotion Inn Bok.  I think I was Peter's first visitor from the Forum 1.5 years ago or so and needless to say I was in awe and impressed, by the person, the collection AND his family!

Thanks Peter!

[Wattana]

As I mentioned, I bought this bottle at a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong in around 2000 but I've since lost the auction catalog and didn't know the background. I'm sure you are right George, this is the same bottle as appears in your photograph. I may now be able to find some more about that bottle.

Hi Geoff,

The Guo'an Collection (of Ann kreuger) was auctioned by Sotheby's HK on 30 October 2000. I have one or two bottles from this sale. The catalogue is at home, so when I find it I will let you know what lot number it was and it's description.......assuming you may want to know(!).

Tom 

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Peter,

     You may be a physicist by training, but having seen many badly faded IPSBs which dated from before 1980, I know from personal knowledge that the sunlight DOES fade them.

     And museologists at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; British Museum, London; all agree with me. Because staff at the first four said so when I loaned them collections (or in the case of the R.O.M., a few bottles and a few scrolls), and friends of mine at the two distinguished London institutions confirmed it.

     The little old ladies who put the bottles on window sills were the worst, but, even if only 1% of the UV gets through, day in and day out, over time there WILL BE DAMAGE.

    However, I also keep them in boxes, NOT like caged rabbits (you Gentiles do like to attribute feelings to inanimate objects, don't you? Inanimate objects feel nothing.); but because YF Yang taught me that Chinese scholarly collectors would NOT display everything at once; because "you cannot perceive the tree's beauty, because of the forest". I'm NOT a Chinese scholar, but I can try to learn from their behavior.

     As I sit at my computer, when I turn my head rightwards, I can see my late mom's glass collection,  or at least my  share of it, one quarter. I have about 130 pieces of ancient glass from 1,400 to 2,800 years old.  I can see individual pieces, barely, but I see the beauty of the whole collection, and it reminds me of the grace and good taste of my beloved mother.

     But YF Yang taught me that a scholar makes the effort to look at an artwork 'worthy' of being viewed. And by choosing to make that effort, his viewing is 'earned' and enriched. My home is a combination of Western and Eastern - I have paintings on the walls and antiquities on display. 

     But I keep my 170 antique IPSBs and my 152 MIPSBs in padded boxes, like the treasures they are, and my 220+ scrolls, fans and album leaves, in a locked cupboard. Except for one scroll, at the moment  a 'One Hundred Birds' scroll from 1799 (which you can see illustrated in "Worlds" on pp.119, 121 in whole, and on pp. 123, 125, 127, and 129, in parts), which I put up for a month each time. In a month, there should not be too much damage, G-D Willing.
   
     I plan next to display my late Ming scroll fragment of the Guanyin in the pose of a lady scholar searching for plum blossoms in snow.

 Best,
    Joey

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Hi  Joey

Putting   IPBs  on a  window  sill facing the   sun   will indeed  gradually  fade the  paint, especially  if   the  windows  are  open  all day. Just see the effect  on wooden  floors which are  exposed   every day to  sunlight .

But  putting bottles  inside a   glass- fronted cabinet  that is   away from direct   sunlight ( and  what  sunlight  there  is  comes  in  through   glass  windows)    will  NOT  fade    paint

The   filtering  effect of  glass  on  UV is  over   90 %  ,  so what's    10%  of  10 % ...  ?    1%

But  anyway, each to their  own  taste

Cheers
Peter

Glass filtering :

Ordinary glass is partially transparent to UV radiation  but is opaque to shorter wavelengths, whereas silica or quartz glass, depending on quality, can be transparent even to vacuum UV wavelengths. Ordinary window glass passes about 90% of the light above 350 nm, but blocks over 90% of the light below 300 nm.

[wgeoff]

Yes Tom, I'd like to know the details of this bottle.

I may try the Sotheby's Office here in Hong Kong to see if they have a Catalog to view or copy.

Geoff

[Wattana]

Yes Tom, I'd like to know the details of this bottle.

I may try the Sotheby's Office here in Hong Kong to see if they have a Catalog to view or copy.

Geoff

Hi Geoff,

Here is the extract from the auction catalogue:

The Guo’an Collection of Fine Chinese Snuff Bottles
Hong Kong, Monday 30 October 2000

Lot number: 693

An inside painted glass bottle by Ye Zhongsan, Beijing, dated 1911, with a continuous underwater scene of eleven various fish swimming in lively poses amid waterweed, signed ‘Ye Zhongsan, beginning of winter, xinhai year’ with one seal 'yin'

Height: 58mm

Guo’an Collection Inventory no. 71

Provenance: Sydney L. Moss Ltd., 1966

Published:    
JICSBS, Autumn 1982, p.47, fig.134
Kinesiska snusflaskor, Antik & Auktion, October 1989, p.64

Sold for: [well, I don't need to mention that!]   

[wgeoff]

Thanks Tom, that's very helpful.
I'll try to get a copy of the auction catalog from Sotheby's.

Geoff

[wgeoff]

Tom tells me I paid HK$6,000 for the Ye Zhongsan in 2000.

I wish I had bought a few more!

Geoff

[Wattana]

Don't we all wish that....!   

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

    I had the late Robert Kleiner bidding for me in that sale, because he took 5% commission for bidding on my behalf, and Clare Chu was taking 10%... Also, Robert would bring my new treasures to London, from where I could pick them up, whether they were going to Israel or Ireland.
    I got 9 bottles, all from lesser-known artists (like a Yu Shuyun, which, with the three I had from Robert [2 from White Wings in 1998; the third from his brother a few weeks before the Guo'An auction while at the DC convention], and the one I'd bought from Bob Hall in 1994, gave me 5 out of the 8 known by this rare and undervalued artist). I wanted the superb Ding Erzhongs, or Zhou Leyuans, but since I already had 5 Dings at much better prices (now I have 7); and 20 Zhous (now, 28), I didn't even bid on the 'superstars'.
Best,
  Joey