This inside-painted glass snuff bottle carries a battle scene from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, worked entirely from the inside of the glass with a bent brush — a technique that demands the painter build the image in reverse, since whatever goes down first ends up furthest from view. The bottle is dated to the Fire-Dragon year (丙辰), corresponding to 1916, and signed by Yong Shoutian (永受田作) with a red seal mark, placing it in the early Republic era rather than the Qing dynasty proper, though the style and training behind it belong squarely to the late Qing tradition of inside-painting.
Yong Shoutian was among the recognized names working in this specialist field as the practice moved from imperial workshops into wider circulation during the transition out of Qing rule, and a signed, dated example like this one gives collectors something more concrete to go on than the unsigned bottles that make up most of the market. The battle scene itself is rendered with the kind of narrative detail inside-painting is prized for — small figures, real movement, a story you can actually follow rather than a decorative blur.
