Snuff bottle

The use of snuff increased and decreased with the rise and fall of the Qing dynasty and died away soon after the establishment of the Republic of China.

[1] Many Western traders favoured this exquisite craft at that time and collected the majority of high-quality old snuff bottles.

The works of four major inside painters such as Ma Shaoxuan and Ye Zhongsan's are appeared in the famous auctions.

Snuff bottles were made out of many different materials including porcelain,[2][3] jade,[4][5] rhinoceros horn,[6][7] ivory,[8][9] wood,[10] coconut shells,[11][12] lapis lazuli,[13][14] gneiss,[15] cork,[15] chalcedony,[15][16] jasper,[17] carnelian,[18][15] malachite,[19][20][15] quartz,[21][15] tortoiseshell,[22][23] metal,[24] turquoise,[25][26][27] agate,[28][29][30] mother-of-pearl,[31] and ceramic,[32] though probably the most commonly used material was glass.

The ideas used are almost always directed toward bringing wealth, health, good luck, longevity, even immortality to the owner of an artifact, frequently as a wish expressed in a kind of coded form by the giver of a gift.

Another popular device is a representation of the 18 Lohan, who were the personal disciples of Buddha, just one group of the many revered immortals in China.

The eight precious organs of the Buddha are venerated – his heart, gall bladder, spleen, lungs, liver, stomach, kidneys and intestines.

A dragon is shown in the example at right on a porcelain bottle in splendid red and blue and clutching the inevitable fiery pearl.

One of the traditions of Chinese art is that only the emperor, his sons and princes of the first and second ranks were permitted to own an artefact illustrated with a dragon having five claws.

Ursula Bourne, in her treatise on snuff, suggested that artisans painted on their backs to make it easier to work through the narrow opening.

Nevertheless, this kind of snuff bottles quickly became the subject of acquisition for a new group of patrons, comprising officials, nobles, scholars and businessmen.

In Beijing, there were three renowned and influential masters, namely Zhou Leyuan, Ma Shaoxuan, Ding Erzhong and Ye Zhongsan.

[35] Inside painted bottles are still made extensively for collectors and becoming more valuable as work of art in the modern times.

A modern inside painted snuff bottle is one of a kind, which serves as a collectible item that captivates the art collectors.

Wang Xisan, born in 1938, is commonly known as the most representative artist in the modern inside painted snuff bottle.

The old inside paintings include four great masters in the Qing dynasty, Ma Shaoxuan, Ye Zhongsan, Ding Erzhong and Zhou Leyuan.

The contemporary inner painting snuff bottles comprise the direct disciple headed by Master Wang Xisan, and well-known artists of the other three schools, such as Liu Shouben, Li Kechang, Wu Songling, etc., are all first-class masters who earned the title of Chinese arts and crafts issued by China authority.

Modern interior-painted snuff bottles are still ongoing in a state of progress, just like conceptual art that is constantly evolving.

In the future, contemporary interior-painted snuff bottles can genuinely develop their path and find the niches in the market.

A simple snuff bullet consists of a small bottle with a plug in the base, a rotatable "dosing chamber" and a hole on the top.