album; painting BM-1965-0724-0.10.2

Period:Qing dynasty Production date:1650
Materials:paper
Technique:painted
Subjects:boat/ship landscape tree/bush
Dimensions:Height: 34.20 centimetres Width: 76 centimetres

Description:
Album leaf. Landscape. Lake surrounded by trees,with figure in boat. Inscription and colophons. Inscription acknowledges that this painting is copying the style of Mi Fei (1051-1107), which can be seen in the large wet dots and soft outline of the rocks. Ink and colour on paper.
IMG


Comments:The album format differed considerably from both the hanging scroll and handscroll in containing a series of intimate paintings in folding leaves. These were often by different artists or by a single artist. The present album contains eight leaves painted by six different artists for Zhou Lianggong, an official, writer and connoisseur of considerable repute. This album was one of a collection of albums Zhou made during the course of his journeys when friends presented him with paintings and others added poems and inscriptions to the paintings he already had. Zhou Lianggong was the author of a work entitled Record of Reading Paintings (Duhua lu) in which he wrote brief biographical sketches of contemporary artists he knew. He made frequent references to the paintings by these artists which he had in his collection of albums. Although this album has been remounted since the seventeenth century, the original silk borders have been retained to preserve the numerous inscriptions.Chen Hongshou was better known as a figure painter, in the style of the fourth-century master Gu Kaizhi. His figure paintings were often based on historical or Buddhist subjects. He also painted flowers and designed woodblock illustrations.