Legend has it that in the Qing Dynasty an official stopped and sought rest at a small temple. He took out his crystal snuff bottle to take a sniff and found it was empty. He scraped off some of the powder that was stuck on the inside walls of the bottle using a slender, sharp bamboo stick, thus leaving lines on the inside of the bottle. When he left he left behind his bottle which was found by a young monk. The monk saw that the marks inside the bottle produced a pattern and thus the "inside painted" snuff bottle was born.

The "painting brush" of the snuff bottle artist today is not very different from what the official in the story used. It is a slender bamboo stick, not much thicker, but much longer than a matchstick, with the tip shaped like a fine pointed hook. Dipped in colored ink and thrust inside the bottle, the hooked tip is used to paint on the interior surface of the bottle, following the will of the artist. 

It is believed that the founder of modern colorful inside painting was "Gan Huan" whose real name was "Gan Xuanwen". His earliest piece appears to have been painted in 1816. "Gan Huan" along with "Zeng Tianzhi" and "Jiang Zhilin" make up what is commonly referred to as the "Early Period" of inside painted snuff bottles. 

Today there are three main studios producing high quality inside painted snuff bottles. These are the "Xisan Art Academy of Inside Painting" located in the city of Hengshui, Hebei province, with "Wang Xisan" as the master artist, the Beijing Studio in Beijing with "Liu Shouben" as the master artist and the Shandong school located in Boshan with "Li Kechang" as the master artist.

In modern times, Liu Shouben, a celebrated master in this field, succeeded in painting all of the 108 heroes and heroines of the classical novel Water Margin, each with his or her characteristic experession, inside a single bottle. Snuff bottles are no more than 6 to 7 cm high and 4 to 5 cm wide with limited internal surface area, making such a feat outstanding. ©Qi Journal

The snuff bottle painted on the inside is a later-emerging handicraft. If other sorts of snuff bottles were executed in arts and crafts techniques, the sole skill on inside painting was born especially for painting snuff bottles. Its outstanding contribution lies in: with innovations in tools and operations, the painters turned the art painted and written on sheets of paper into art painted on hard glass snuff bottle (including rock crystal), and moreover, painted reversely on the inside, of which the difficulty and intriguing are unimaginable. It is superb craftsmanship excelling nature. It is worth noting that the success and development of the snuff bottle painted on the inside depended on the high-transparency glass, especially the successful technique of chest-hollowing.

The date when the inside painted snuff bottle was first made still remains to be confirmed. But the Qianlong Theory and Guangxu Theory of the Qing dynasty were widely spread.

The Guangxu reign (1875-1908) saw a climax in the production of the inside painted snuff bottles. Famous painters coming forth in large numbers. The subject matters painted are wide-ranging. Each different in style, opening up a prospect of all flowers vying for beauty in full bloom. The master painters who exercised strong influence upon the art of the inside painting including Zhou Leyuan, Ma Shaoxuan, Ye Zhongsan, Ding Erzhong, Meng Zishou, Bi Rongjiu and others.

The inside-painted snuff bottle also had something to do with the Qing imperial court. The imperial court did collect several portraitures by renown painters, giving a proof to the fact that the inside painted snuff bottles found favor in the eyes of the royal family and were presented as tributes. ©Artistic Chinese Creations

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