PROPERTY FORMERLY IN THE COLLECTION OF LESTER KNOX LITTLE (1892-1981) LOTS 873-874 海關總稅務司署外籍總稅務司李度（1892-1981）舊藏 拍品873-874
PU RU (1896-1963)
Snow Landscape Mounted, framed and glazed, ink and color on paper, inscribed by the artist and signed Xinyu, with three artist's seals. 30 x 15 3/8in (76.2 x 39cm)
Provenance: Gifted from Lott H.T. Wei (1890-?) to Lester Knox Little (1892-1981), Taipei, 1949 Thereafter by descent.
Lester Knox Little first went to China following his graduation from Dartmouth College in 1914, and later he served in the Chinese Customs Service. Although it was a branch of the Chinese government from its inception in 1857, the Customs Service was led and predominantly staffed by foreigners. Lester Knox Little would serve as the last foreign Inspector General until 1949, although his tenure was briefly interrupted when he was captured by the Japanese and repatriated to the United States. Following his tour of duty on the Mainland, Little worked for the Ministry of Finance in Taiwan. His personal papers and correspondence are in the collection of Houghton Library at Harvard University, and his journals were recently published: Chang Chiyuan ed. The Chinese journals of L.K. Little, 1943-1954: an eyewitness account of war and revolution, Routledge Press, London 2017.
On the reverse it is noted that the painting was gifted to Lester Knox Little from Lott H.T. Wei (Wei Xianzhang, 韋憲章) in 1949. Born in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, Lott Wei graduated from Saint John's University in Shanghai and earned a master's degree in business management from the University of Pennsylvania in 1917. From 1929 to 1944, he served as the Vice Director of the Shanghai Mint, and then, after a brief interval managing one of T.V. Soong's companies, becoming Director of the Mint in 1945. As evinced by Little's published journals, he and Lott Wei had a close friendship, dating back to the time when both were in Chongqing in 1943-1945, where they frequently met for tea or dinner. In 1949, Lott Wei relocated to Taiwan, where he continued as Director of the Central Mint until 1955.
李度生於美國羅得島州，一九一四年畢業於達特茅斯學院後即加入中華民國海關，該政府機構以洋員居多，李度先後於北平、廈門、天津、上海、廣州等地任要職。一九四一年任廣州稅務司時曾被日本人軟禁，以致次年遣送回美。但一九四三年，李度又至國民政府陪都重慶，次年任總稅務司至四九年，亦是該職位的最後一任。隨後，李度至台灣擔任中華民國財政部顧問，不久便回遷美國。他的工作日記及信件現存放於哈佛大學霍頓圖書館（Houghton Library），於2017年被整理出版為《李度中國日記：1943-1954》（The Chinese Journals of L. K. Little, 1943-1954）。
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