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Hi,
I was hoping that someone might be able to help me with identifying this silk painting that my mother gave me. my grandmother bought the painting in Hong Kong in the early seventies.

This is a Chinese iconic depiction of "100 Birds Adoring the Phoenix" (百鳥拜鳳 - Bai niao bai feng), at least I think these are the correct characters for the cursive script. The red seal looks like it may indicate this item was made at one of the Guangdong factories. This piece probably was fairly new when purchased by your grandfather.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Super, your take on the translation is appreciated, as always. I'd only note that the one I cited is a legitimate version, albeit one that seems to take second place to the other nowadays. I would speculate that this fall into disuse may have something to do with the term "bai" (拜) having become associated with Christian and other worship practices of non-Chinese origin in modern times.

Best regards,

Bill H.

The title of your silk picture is 百鳥朝凰 Bai Niao Chao Huang (top to bottom)

百鳥 Hundred birds
朝 Toward, facing; in this case means the birds are paying respect (bowing toward) to the phoenix like that toward a king(or queen);
凰 Huang, like in 鳳凰 feng huang or phoenix
In my other post, I pointed out that very often even many Chinese had mistakenly believed 鳳 feng is a female phoenix, and therefore many Chinese girls have 鳳 feng in their names. The correct use for feng is actually as a male phoenix while 凰 haung is name of a female phoenix. So why was 凰 haung was used in the title of this silk painting? Possible explanation is either because a lot of Chinese mistakenly believed 凰 haung is that of a male phoenix. Another explanation is that 凰 haung sounds similar to 皇 (emperor).

I have only known 百鳥朝凰 in all of the silk paintings or regular painting I had ever seen. This is another example:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%E7%99%BE%E9%B3%A5%E6%9C%9D%E5%87%B0&tbm=isch&imgil=H7XPOu_CYThfdM%253A%253B2tFh5uC_wb-bNM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.007swz.com%25252Fjyxx0731%25252Fproducts%25252Fzihuagongyihua_382.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=H7XPOu_CYThfdM%253A%252C2tFh5uC_wb-bNM%252C_&usg=__dQxfmaUootresfsGy1ULG_P0FGo%3D&biw=1093&bih=459&ved=0ahUKEwii6fC3nKvNAhWLZiYKHfiRAIgQyjcIMw&ei=nulhV6KiFIvNmQH4o4LACA#imgrc=H7XPOu_CYThfdM%3A

However, when I researched it, I actually found the usage of 百鳥朝鳳(feng) However, based on the enlarged picture here, it is definitely that of 凰 huang.

The red seal, from right to left is:
廣繡 (广绣) Guang Xiu. In this case it is actually 廣绣 a combination of traditional and simplified Chinese.

廣绣 Guangdong (Canton) embroidery is embroidery of Guangzhou, Foshan, Nanhai, Panyu , Shunde , Dongguan, Baoan , Xiangshan , Taishan , etc. embroidery, also based in Guangzhou as the center of the Pearl River Delta folk embroidery. (Hong Kong is a part of Guangzhou)

with the other three Chinese embroideries,
江苏的苏绣、(Jiangsu's su xiu)
湖南的湘绣、(Hunan's xiang xiu)
四川的蜀绣 (Sichuan's shu xiu)
they are known as the four most renown embroideries in China.

I have a painting of 苏绣 su xiu, it is so very beautiful. Sadly many of these embroideries would not be able to be produced in China for much longer because younger Chinese no longer want to "waster" their time on Chinese folk arts. Therefore take care of this silk painting. The newer ones would be nothing like it. Cheer.

Super

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