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My father bought this painting in the Japan in the 1950's. His note in the box said the painter was Ch'en Hung-Shou (1768-1822). I was told by someone who viewed photos of the painting that the work is "a Japanese copy after a famous Chinese artist". I imagine this is true, but I got some misinformation on other paintings from the same source, so I thought I would check to see what the experts on this forum think. Copy or not, I think that it's a nice painting.

Thanks,

Jim

Thanks for the god clear pictures of the colophon and seal.

The signature is Chen HongShou 陳鴻壽.

I will check tomorrow to see if the seal and signature correspond to those recorded in my dictionary of Chinese artists.

The inscription is signed as being by the Qing Chen Hongshou 陳鴻壽 (1768-1822) (the seal reads the same), not the better known Ming Chen Hongshou 陳洪綬 (1598-1635). It's a nice painting but is wholly Japanese in both painting brushwork and calligraphy (and mounting) even though the inscription is written as if it is by Chen himself. One problem with the inscription though is that it gives a date that does not exist: it states that it was painted in the dingmao 丁卯 year of the Qianlong reign, or 1747, two decades before Chen was born. The only dingmao year during Chen's life was 1807, which is more plausible since Chen was alive then but for the fact that Qianlong stepped down from the throne in 1795 and died in 1799. There's only a plausible date there if what I am reading as mao 卯 is actually something else, but in any case it's a trivial point because the painting isn't by Chen. Rather someone came along and added "Chen's" inscription to an anonymous Japanese picture.

My understanding is that the actual Chen primarily painted small studies of plants and food items (he was also a poet and seal carver but may be best known as a calligrapher), so a landscape seems out of the ordinary to begin with. You can find examples of his work that has come up at auction online. There's also a book written about him.

Here are two examples of Chen's calligraphy in a similar script, which as you can see are quite different from that on your painting:
https://learninglab.si.edu/resources/view/89694/search
https://learninglab.si.edu/resources/view/72277/search

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