Hand Painted Crystal Fountain Pen

The Art of Oriental Internal Painting ¨C A History Revisited

Dear Yi Cheng Pen Lovers,

This week we bring you or March News Letter

The Art of Oriental Internal Painting ¨C A History Revisited

The art of internal painting was first seen in the Chinese Snuff bottles. Snuff bottles are not native to China but were reportedly introduced from the west by Fr.Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit father who worked in Beijing in the early 17th century. Yet the art of interior painting in snuff bottles was born and developed in China and unique to the country.

A popular story tells how the art originated. In the Qing Dynasty, an official addicted to snuff stopped on his way at a small temple for a rest. When he took out his crystal snuff bottle to take a sniff, he found it was already empty. He then scraped off a little of the powder that has stuck on the interior wall of the bottle by means of a slender bamboo stick, thus leaving lines on the inside, visible through the transparent wall. A young monk saw him at this and hit upon the idea of making pictures inside the bottle. This a new art was born.

The ¡°painting brush¡± of the snuff bottle artist today is not very different from what the official in the story used at the beginning. It is a slender bamboo stick, not much thicker but much longer than a match, with the tip shaped like a fine pointed hook. Dipped in the coloured ink and thrust inside the bottle, the hooked tip is employed to paint on the interior walls following the will of the painter.

The art became perfected and flourished towards at the end of the Qing Dynasty at the turn of the century. Curio dealers began to offer good prices to collect them for a profit.

Snuff bottles are small in size, no more than 6-7cm high and 4-5cm wide, yet the accomplished artist can produce, on the limited space of the internal surfaces, any subject on the whole gamut of traditional Chinese painting ¨C human portraits, landscapes, flowers and birds ¨C and calligraphy. Liu Shouben, a celebrated contemporary master in this field, succeeded in painting all the 108 heros and heroines of the classical novel Water Margin, each with his and her characteristic expression, all inside one single bottle!

Now for the first time in pen history, Yi Cheng is proud to bring you the essence of Chinese Art of Inside painting on a Crystal pen by our Master Artiste. All the paintings of the pen require a mastery hand and endless hours of care. No two pens are the same

 Back    Next