The Lingnan School

Fig. 36. Faceted crystal bottle painted in black ink Fig. 37. Second part of painting on bottle in figure 36. Fig. 38. Completion of painting on bottle in figure 36. tradition and be very serious indeed. Two further bonles are worth re– cording and are probably both by the same hand, in which case his name is Lin Qing (figs. 36-40). They are confidently painted Iiterati scenes of a scholar in landscape in black ink and on crystal-the bottle in figures 36-38 of a typi<;ally Ling– nan faceted form. The other is quite bizarre and unlike established Ling– nan output other than in its subject maner (figs. 39 and 40). Apart from a rather clumsier painting, perhaps an earlier anempt than the first, it is backed by an inscription in seal script, a script not used anywhere else in the Lingnan School of bottle painting. The rather rubbed signa– ture reads Lin Qing, who is nowhere recorded. Apart from the bottle of a myste– rious recluse, Yiru jushi, one or two other bottles appear to date from the earliest period of snuff bottle in– terior painting but stylistically are not attributable specifically to the Lingnan School. It is likely that the Lingnan artists either invented or popularized the art form but that the wide interest in snuff and snuff bonles at the beginning of the nine– teenth century created an environ- 15 Fig. 39. From of crystal bottle with landscape. Fig. 40. Seal script inscription on reverse of bottle in figure 39, signed Un Qing.