ABSTRACT
Inside painted snuff bottles illustrate two traditional forms of Chinese art – painting and calligraphy – and were cherished as such by a number of Chinese scholar collectors. As such, it afforded the artist of inside painted snuff bottles an opportunity to display both his erudition and skill in adapting the preface to fit the interior of a bottle. For instance, this could range from an extract rendered in 4 columns with 10 characters in each one, to 11 characters arranged in 6 columns, and so on. Traditional Chinese painters attained this effect by utilizing what came to be known as the Four Treasures of the Study namely, the brush, paper, ink, and the inkstone. It is quite apparent that these materials were not suitable for painting the interior of a snuff bottle, further emphasizing the specialized nature of the technique these artists had to master.
