AN INSIDE-PAINTED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLEMa Shaoxuan Signed and dated wuxu year, corresponding to 1898 Painted on both main faces with an extract from Lanting Xu (Orchid Pavilion Preface) by Wang Xizhi (303-361),prising one hundred and eleven characters preceded by the seal, Shao on one side and followed by the date, signature and seal xuan on the other; stopper. 2 1/2in (6.6cm) high 1898年 馬少宣 玻璃内畫蘭亭序鼻烟壺 Provenance: Susan Hacker Robert Kleiner, The Susan Hacker Collection, 25 October 2000 Exhibited: International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, Waldorf Astoria, New York, 5-9 November 2013, no. 86 來源： Susan Hacker舊藏 現藏家於2000年10月25日經Robert Kleiner購自上述藏家 展覽： 國際中國鼻煙壺學會年會，紐約華爾道夫酒店，2013年11月5日至9日，展品編號86 For an identically-inscribed and dated bottle formerly in the Charles V. Swain Collection and now in the Adelina and Roberto Foti Collection, see A & R Foti, Atomo Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles , Hong Kong, 2009, p. 27, no. 22, where the entire poem, an excerpt from 'The Prologue of the Orchid Pavilion' by the eminent calligrapher Wang Xizhi , is fully translated and parts read as follows: 'in the ninth year of Yonghe (353 CE) on the festival of Gui Wei, at the start of a spring dawn, we met at the Orchid Pavilion at Hui ji Mountain to drink and chase away the evil spirits... Sages gathered amidst tall mountains, lush trees, bamboo grooves near clear sparkling streams, gentle breezes and observed the magnitude of the universe and the riches of the earth...' For further discussion of the subject of the Lanting Preface in Ma's output, see Ma Zhengsan, Inside-Painted Bottle Artist, Ma Shaoxuan (1867-1939) , Baltimore, 1997, pp. 77-98, in the chapter 'Calligraphy Works'. See , Hong Kong, 28 November 2011, lot 49 for a bottle dated to the same year but of different shape and format. See also Sotheby's, New York, The Hildegard Schonfeld Collection, 21 March 2013, lot 1088.