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Subject:painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: Heidi Tue, May 26, 2015 IP: 173.209.212.216

Assistance requested in translating the writing on this painting and identification of artist mark.

Im also wondering if there is a signature in the lower right corner...

I have tickets to Antique Roadshow on the 30th - trying to decide what to take.

Thank-you!!!

Heidi







Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: rat Wed, May 27, 2015

Don't take this picture to Antiques Roadshow unless you are simply curious (as I am) as to what it is, as my view is that it is not a monetarily valuable painting but a copy or pastiche of some sort. I am wondering if this isn't a Chinese copy of a (Japanese? --due to the idiosyncratic calligraphic style, the picture's composition, and the clarity of its component parts that your artist has done a good job emulating) painting in Chinese style: the foreground pines and details are neatly rendered as if from a Japanese screen painting or hanging scroll that is imitating Yuan or even Ming paintings in the Li Cheng/Guo Xi tradition. The pines show a masterful integration of negative and positive space that I find incongruous given the weaknesses evident elsewhere in the picture. For example, the Southern Song-style pillars of rock in the background are clumsily rendered. The spits of land and clumps of trees meant to convey spatial recession are also very clumsily placed, as if--to use a trees vs forest metaphor--the copyist was focused on getting the trees right at the expense of creating a convincing overall impression of the forest.

The calligraphy of the inscription seems copied too: it conveys an elegant and idiosyncratic style, but although the individual brushstrokes are competently enough rendered, a number of the characters lack the organic balance one would expect to see both when looking at individual characters in isolation and when considering how they look when written inscribed as a group.

There seems not to be an artist's signature in the inscription, unless it's supposed to be something like 萧孫无, a reading I am not confident in. Not dated either. However the inscription does refer to 大癡,a nickname for Yuan painter Huang Gongwang. The pale green, brown, and blue colors are common in 20th late century PRC landscape paintings though, in which case I wonder why a recent Chinese painter would be emulating an earlier Japanese work rather than more readily available Chinese models. Your picture might instead therefore be a copy of a Republic or early PRC period picture in a meticulous style like that of Xie Zhiliu or Wu Hufan. The painter has decent technical skills but needs more practice.

I can't read the seal from these photos.

Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: Super Thu, May 28, 2015

Rat: It looks like the calligraphy is supposedly a poem with 4 sentences each of which contains 7 characters with one character missing in the last sentence.

The first sentence is:
登仙天庭老子白
which talks about the famous Lao Zi who reached heaven and became an immortal.

Super


Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: rat Fri, May 29, 2015

woah, quite right Super, thank you. Heidi, you can forget about my reference to Huang Gongwang, I misread the first line. Take something else to the show if you have something you think is valuable.

Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: Super Wed, May 27, 2015

Please understand I am not trying to be disrespectful and since I am not an expert on Chinese paintings like others such as Rat, therefore you should only take what I said with a grain of salt. There is something extremely awkward with the calligraphy and the execution of this painting, it almost (I said almost) looks like it was done by somebody who really did not know how to write Chinese and made an imitation copy fron another painting. Now of course I can be wrong.

Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: Heidi Thu, May 28, 2015

Thank-you for your input.

I took this painting to a Chinese restaurant thinking someone there might be able to translate the inscription/calligraphy.


The lady who attempted to assist me said she could not translate the writing. She said it was Chinese - very old Chinese characters and that was why she could not read it. She said she could make out a few words but that was all (500, sun or stars & something else - I've forgotten what she said/the words she could make out).

I think I will take this painting to the Antique Roadshow. ...and hope you are not correct. :)

Thanks again for your input/response!

Heidi

Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: Super Fri, May 29, 2015

These are not OLD Chinese characters but just very poorly excuted ones, in both their calligraphy and and the writing of the poem, almost like some mumble jumble, sorry. That was why Rat told you not to bring it to the Antiques Roadshow.

Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: Heidi Sat, May 30, 2015

Oh well...guess Ill be on the bloopers!

Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: rat Mon, Jun 01, 2015

Can you share what the opinion of the Antiques Roadshow expert was? His/her name?

Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: Heidi Tue, Jun 02, 2015

The Antique Roadshow 'expert' was the heavyset guy/the ponytail (name?). He tossed the framed art aside w/o even looking at it - saying it was a photocopy. (I was wondering, rat, if you were he.)

When I got home,, I took the artwork out of the frame. It is on very fine rice paper = not a photocopy. I took photos & sent them via e-mail to a different Roadshow appraiser. He replied stating he was traveling/didn't have time to research the marks - he sent my photos to his assistant & she would research the artist mark (s).

Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: Rat Wed, Jun 03, 2015

That was probably James Callaghan, who used to run Asian art for Skinner auctions in Boston. Sorry to hear you didn't get any useful information.

Subject:Re: painting - translation please - identification of artist mark(I have tickets to Antique
Posted By: rat Wed, Jun 03, 2015

Not sure who the other Asian appraiser might be, perhaps Lark Mason. He is involved with an online sales site called igavel. All of appraisers I know on its list are affiliated with auction houses, not surprising perhaps, as they get a chance to ask owners to consign their objects with their auction houses if they see something they think they can sell.


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