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Can anyone please help me to find out anything I can about these paintings I inherited? I have been told they are Chinese and that is all I know. My relative passed away before I ever found out the history behind them.I have three more to upload but having difficulty getting the file size correct. Thank you in advance.

Chinese. This is supposed to be a painting by Wu Donghuai, who was born in 1853 and died in 1904. While much of the inscription is unclear, at its top it contains a clear date which is equivalent to 1875. It also includes his name and what seems to be a dedication to someone else. I'm not familiar with this artist's works however, and there seems to be a wide range of painting and handwriting styles in pictures attributed to him online (link below--none of the images seem to be from a reliable source), so I am both unsure this is genuine and unsure that any of the paintings posted online are genuine either. To me your picture seems a bit weak in composition and quality of line, but then if genuine this would have been by a young painter anyway, imitating "Shanghai School" works. But then there wouldn't be information about him today if he wasn't a decent painter, and this picture isn't particularly good. So, not impossible, but not persuasive either.


https://www.google.com/search?q=%E5%90%B4%E4%B8%9C%E6%A7%90&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSjo3OltjPAhWEWT4KHfTfDzsQsAQIJg#imgrc=_

The painting is Chinese.

The artist's seal reads 吳東槐 - Wu Dong Huai.

The date is written 乙亥 which would be 1995, 1935 or 1875.

Wu Dong Huai was born in 1853, and died in 1904, aged 51.

If genuine, this would demand the earlier date and the artist would have been 22 at the time.

Consultant member Rat may have more information and opinion.

Thank you both very much for your help. It is fascinating to start getting a history of them. I have posted the three other paintings which I have. Again any information you could tell me about these other three would be greatly appreciated. I do have closer pictures of the inscription if you would like them but it only lets you post three images at a time.

First one seems to be the strongest painting, with cyclical calendar year gengshen corresponding to 1920 I think. Can't tell much from the rest of the inscription at this resolution. The other two are by the same artist, one with the Daoist immortals seems inscribed as being painted in Shanghai, the other of the fishing girls has a date that cannot be correct placing it in the 18th century when late Republic is probably closer to the truth.

Thank you again for the response. Just to clarify, do you mean the two smaller paintings are by a different artist to the longer ones? Are the two longer ones both Wu Donghuai? My relative was an ambassador in Peking during 1948-1952 and I think the paintings were probably brought back by him.

Only the first picture you posted has the attribution to Wu. Of the group of three photos you then added, the two smaller ones are by the same artist. The artist names are not jumping out from the inscriptions/seals though

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