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Our movers lost a large watercolor of two Chinese ladies (see attached image). We would like to establish the identity of the painting/artist and possibly also arrange for a replica to be created. The Chinese text and signature along the right-hand side may be helpful. Unfortunately, we don’t have any better quality of photo. Does anyone recognize this work? Thanks for your assistance!

Hello Jay,

The stack of five bold characters at upper right in your picture comprise its title, which appears to read 'Picture of Beauty going to Bathe' (furong chu shui tu). The column to the left of the title begins with a cyclical date of the Jiwei year, which taking stylistic nuances into account would be 1979 in the case of this painting. The rest of the cursive characters are too small and indistinct for this foreign devil to read but some of our native Chinese scholars may be able to fathom the meaning.

Meanwhile, the 'beauty' appears to be Yang Guifei, legendary looker and star-crossed principal concubine of the Tang emperor Xuanzong (AD 685-762). There is a theme park called 'Tang Paradise' (Da Tang Fu Rong Yuan - same 'fu rong') near the old Tang capital at Xian, as well as a 30-episode Chinese soap opera of the same name that's currently showing around the Mainland I gather. The soap opera dramatizes the life and times of Xuanzong and Yang Guifei, whose bathing pool was identified some years ago at the old Tang palace near Xian. Your picture may well be a souvenir of someone's visit to Xian.

Good luck,

Bill H.

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