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I have this painting that we bought at a thrift store and it's now in our garage sale pile. There may be a reason it was at a junk shop, but I wanted to try to find out a little more about it (if there's anything to know) before we leave it in our own junk pile! :) Can anyone translate or recognize this signature or anything about this?

Presuming your picture of a plum or maybe a pear branch in bloom is Chinese, I believe the bold black characters may not be a surname, as neither suits that usage, and names would usually go in the red seal, which can't be read (pun intended). However, I suppose a given name can't be ruled out. In any event, the characters probably translate downward in Mandarin as "Zu Tian" (足天), possibly meant to be the title, with a meaning of "perfect day". I would only add that the presumed "zu" character has a an initial short stroke curving down to the right at the top that isn't present in the standard character form, so maybe its a personal serif

Best regards,

Bill H.

should be 定夫， "Dingfu" in mandarin but am not sure of the picture's origin

Thank Heaven for Rat & Super's better grasp of characters. I'd guess this to be Japanese if only because their calligraphy is always giving e such fits.

Bill H.

The name is 定夫 Ding Fu, without the surname, it can be either a Chinese name (more common than I thought) or Japanese name. You may notice that this name was not even made with a regular Chinese brush, more likely with a modern marker. I am not sure there is really a lot of artistic value of this painting. Of course I can be wrong.

There are a Chinese artist with this name:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht43VN3-5S4

Hi,
The mounting style of this artwork looks Japanese to me. Are there roundels of a sparrow pattern repeat on the rear ?
I suspect this is a "tourist piece" from the 70/80's.
So not of great value....in my opinion
Sue

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