Picture of One Hundred Sons
Ma Shaoxian, Xuannan district, Beijing, Second Month 1900
Ding Erzhong, 1940
Height: 6.8 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.72/2.00 cm
Stopper: tourmaline; silver collar
Provenance:
Jade House, Hong Kong, 1978
J & J Collection
Christie’s, Hong Kong, 25 April 2004, lot 867
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd.
Colourless glass, ink, and watercolours; with a concave lip and recessed convex, oval foot surrounded by a protruding flattened, oval foot rim; painted on the inside on one main side with four young boys on a grassy ground, one prancing with a halberd held aloft, another two holding flags, and the fourth beating a drum, inscribed in regular script Baizi tu 百子圖 (‘Picture of one hundred sons’), and on the other, also in regular script, with a poem preceded by the date Gengchen xingyue 更辰杏月 (‘Second Month of the gengchen year’) and followed by Xie yu Xuannan寫於宣南 (‘Written/drawn at Xuannan’) run in with the poem, and the signature Ma Shaoxian 馬紹先 (‘ Ma Shaoxian’) in the next column, with one seal of the artist.
The poem on this bottle has long been attributed to Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037 – 1001). [1] Despite the fact that it is fairly well known, commentators disagree on the literal meaning of the second line.
春宵一刻值千金. 花有清香月有陰. 歌管樓臺聲細細, 鞦韆院落夜沉沉.
A single moment of a springtime night is worth a thousand in gold.
The blossoms with their clean fragrance cast shadows in the moonlight.
Sings and pipes on bowers and terraces: the sound is ever so faint;
A swing in the courtyard with the falling of night hangs in silence.
It should be noted that swings in traditional China were used by women of the privileged classes.
[1]Su Shi shi ji 蘇軾詩集 [Collected poems of Su Shi] (Beijing: Zhunghua shuju, 1982), 8:47.2592.
