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Sun Xing Wu bottle ?

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« on: January 23, 2017, 09:50:40 am »

Dear all,

I seek your comments / observations on this bottle in my collection。

It is signed by Sun Xing Wu ( 孙星五 )and painted inside a rutilated crystal bottle.

I tried to take the pictures with my iPhone, a bit trying though ...

Inn Bok


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« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2017, 10:18:36 am »


Inn Bok,

I would not expect this to be a middle period artist Sun Xingwu bottle.  Sun Xingwu is likely my favorite middle period artist.  I've been fortunate to see a few of is works in person and have studied a number of his bottles in the published literature.  The subject matter, color palette, and painting composition seems way off for a Sun Xingwu middle period bottle.

My conclusion would be this is a modern bottle done by another artist of the same name or an artist inappropriately attributing this work to Sun Xingwu.

Charll 



 
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Charll K Stoneman, Eureka, California USA, Collector Since 1979.

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« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2017, 11:11:16 am »

Dear Inn Bok,

無獨有偶 (to our non-Chinese friends, this phrase literally means one is not alone as he has a companion, it actually means "coincidentally"), I have a falsely signed "Sun Xingwu" bottle that is highly identical to yours in painting style and the shape of it is exactly the same as yours. Does yours have a dull polished surface? Then our bottles have yet another common feature. I've been hesitating to show it as I knew it's not genuine, but I'll post it here for your comparison.

It's one of the first bottles I bought. Back then I had not joined the forum yet and I had very shallow knowledge on inside painting art and the artists. I bought this bottle because I liked the subjects depicted, a pair of swans on one side and a pair of mandarin ducks on the other. Both swimming in the lotus pond... My attention was first drawn to that, I only turned to the signature afterwards and found it was signed "Sun Xingwu". Ironically, I actually learned of master Sun through such a bottle falsely signed in his name. Of course, I later found that my bottle wasn't done by him. One thing I'm still puzzling over, my bottle has something that looks like clotted snuff residuals in it. One possibility is that it's really been used as a snuff bottle before...

I've seen original Sun Xingwu's work in Joey's collection, I have to say it's truly exquisite and gorgeous!

Best,
Samson



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« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 11:18:40 am by samsonlzj » Report Spam   Logged

Samson - a young new collector desiring knowledge
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« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2017, 11:59:33 am »

Dear Samson,

After introducing myself to the forum my first post was in the photo faked thread. I had bought 3 faked bottles at one auction, none at a price that made it matter, two were properly painted and the other photo enhanced.

Although all three bottles were a different shape to yours, they all had the dull surface. With a loupe it looks like orange peel but far finer. They all were stained inside like yours and had traces of "snuff" inside.

I very gently cleaned mine out with cotton buds and used a dremel to polish the glass which improved them considerably.

Regards, Adrian.
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Pat - 查尚杰
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« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2017, 07:25:01 pm »

Adrian, Samson, Inn Bok

This has come up somewhere before but the 'matted' exterior look AND the remains of 'snuff', in addition to abusing master's names are trademarks of Shandong fakers.. all to make them appear old and genuine.  I have somewhere deep in storage (to hide my stupidity and to avoid them being put on the market to fool others) several dozen of these bottles acquired as part of 'collections' / lots, kept as a testament and living proof how pervasive this practice is.  This started in the 60s and continues to this day. In addition, what also gives them away is unusually shaped glass bottles as compared to the ones we typically see in middle period. 

Inn Bok

Your bottle and why on earth the guy faked Sun Xingwu in a fine reticulated quartz bottle is a mystery to me, and a stupid one at that .. the bottle itself is valuable, the faked signature takes it all away, whoever the artist was (and whoever carved that fine bottle). 
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 07:29:24 pm by Pat » Report Spam   Logged

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Pat
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« Reply #5 on: January 24, 2017, 12:08:03 am »

Pat,

I bought the bottle because I was first attracted to the material - not glass but rutilated quartz.
My preference for material bottles over IPSB is a direct extreme opposite of Peter who builds up an
impressive collection of modern IP bottles ( which I only have a few ). My IPSB are mainly those works from second/third generation  Hebei and Shandong artists.

In this bottle I posted, the fluid style of the floral painting, the details of the dragon flies and the overall layout of the painting were acceptable to me. It was unfortunate that I never had a Sun piece and neither have I handled any of his original work. Good to hear from you and others who had Sun pieces in their collection.

Regards,
Inn Bok
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« Reply #6 on: January 24, 2017, 12:14:51 am »

Inn Bok

I agree it is well painted.  A pity they don't use their own name.  The bottle itself is very nice too!
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Pat
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« Reply #7 on: January 24, 2017, 01:00:54 am »

Pat,

I agreed with you about the artist's signature. My guess is that he/she could belong to some syndicate that controls their livelihood, hence no personal signature ! It is liken to the period of cultural revolution when artists' names did appear on their works of art. They all subsumed under the approved factory or studio. Later, their works were presented as, say, One Bottle Studio or
一壶斋. Many of their works were excellent.

In the current period, it is the desire to ride on famous artists like Wang XS or Liu SB etc ( which is difficult because of traceability or copy right ). But it is safer to borrow old names like MSX , BRJ, SXW etc. !

Inn Bok
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« Reply #8 on: January 24, 2017, 01:10:27 am »

Pat,

As I guided myself by the three characters of 精真美, I find this bottle satisfies my minimum standard
for 精 and 美 for the price offered to me. Then when it comes to 真, I find it is 真 in that it is an authentic rutilated quartz. The struggle then was on the 真 with regards to original artist !

In this case, the material of the bottle outweighs the rest !

Inn Bok
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« Reply #9 on: January 24, 2017, 01:14:27 am »

Well said.. and I could not agree more.  A nice and well carved reticulated quartz bottle alone to paint in would be 3000 - 5000 rmb in mainland china these days.

By the way for those of you wondering about my Chinese name.  It was given to me by my Chinese colleagues who I dearly miss since 2010.

查尚杰

Zha Shang Jie

查   chá   to research; to check; to investigate; to examine; to refer to; to look up (e.g. a word in a dictionary)
   zhā   see 山查[shan1 zha1]
   Zhā   surname Zha
尚   shàng   still; yet; to value; to esteem
   Shàng   surname Shang
杰   jié   hero; heroic; outstanding person; prominent; distinguished
   jié   variant of 傑|杰[jie2]

Only recently I have decided to use it again, as I consider using it for my collection...

Incidentally, on another note, I forgot to mention that the picture I am using in my profile avatar is one (if not first) fake bottles I acquired as I moved from modern inside painted bottles to middle period examples.  It is imitating rock crystal, carved as a gourd inside, signed Ma Shao Xuan and has a poem in the back.  It has all the elements of what I said earlier (strange shape - no neck - like the bottle was standing on its neck but no hole there ofcourse, snuff remnants, sepia color, matted glass, and fake signature).  I consider it testament of my evolved learning in MPIP and a constant reminder of how far I have come and still have so much to learn and discover... 

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Pat
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« Reply #10 on: January 24, 2017, 03:53:22 am »

George put up a recent post "Did one of our members win this bottle" and wondered who the artist might be. As I recognised the seal on the bottle I sought to help. My bottle with the same seal also had a signature the same as the part signature on the bottle George was asking about, a fake Ding Erzhong one.

The seal is one I know I have seen on other bottles for sale and also appears on a 3 other bottles I own which are all in relatively good bottles and are "Belle" style, ladies in traditional clothes. Some of the artists on Bill's site seem to have painted in this style before developing their own style.

Is it as Inn suggests, that the seal represents one studio that requires some of it's artists produce copies of past masters. Are the artists offered more for these copies by the studio than they may be for their own works. It would be interesting to identify the studio if only to be able to give something in a description for all these bottles going forwards. Perhaps over time artists that fake other artists may become known.

From my limited knowledge of Chinese art, I believe that traditional art schools in China teach their pupils by having them copy old paintings until they can reproduce them very accurately. The same can be said of past IP artists and their students. This may stop some artists from having faith in their ability to develop their own style so they only ever feel confident to carry on copying.

These copies that we see now will one day become part of snuff bottle history, we can dismiss these fakes or try and find something to link them to better our understanding.

Regards, Adrian.   
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