There is a caption on this painting: “The Spring of the Sea is deep and joyful. During the Jiaping and Jiaping months of the reign of Guangxu, there is a royal pen written by Huan Yu.” On the back, there is a white square seal with the words “Han He Lu Zhong”, and a Zhu square seal with the words “Li Ju Zhen”. On the upper, there is a Zhu Wen square seal with the words “Treasure of Empress Dowager Cixi”, and on the right, there is a Zhu rectangular seal with the words “Da Ya Zhai”
From the title, we can see that this picture was painted in the first year of Guangxu’s reign in the Qing Dynasty, that is, 1904, when Cixi was 69 years old
Empresses in the Qing Dynasty often amused themselves with paintings and calligraphy, thereby killing time. Empress Dowager Cixi especially loved this approach, often rewarding ministers with so-called “imperial brush” calligraphy and paintings as a token of grace, but most of her works were actually ghostwritten by others, including Miao Jiahui. Miao Jiahui, whose character is Su Yun, is a native of Kunming, Yunnan Province. She was the main guide and ghostwriter of Cixi’s painting activities, serving Cixi for over 20 years, and during that time, she ghosted a large number of works for Cixi
This picture is painted with colors of swimming fish and algae, with elegant colors and fresh ink. It has high painting skills, and is most likely a work of Miao’s ghostwork
![图片[1]-Cixi Fish and Algae Diagram Axis-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Warring States period/painting/56243[1024].jpg)
![[Qing Dynasty] British female painter—Elizabeth Keith, using woodblock prints to record China from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China—1915-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/image-191x300.png)
