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ANy help with paintings appreciated. This picture shows 3 , but there are I believe 2 more in the set that belong to a distant relative. The seal is blown up a bit in the bottom right of the photo.

Age? Artist? Translation?

These were painted in the winter of Gengzi (庚子), a cyclical year equivalent to 1960 in the context of the painting style. The lower red seal and the last two characters in the inscription both read as an apparent name, Jing Wen (景文), but both are surnames, so which comes first is a subject needing further research or comment. I'm unsure of the other red seal and unclear characters, though the two just before the name (apparently Bi Nian - 筆念) seem to infer that the pictures were painted "as a remembrance".

Maybe one of our savants or native scholars can sort it out from here.

Best regards,

Bill H.

The second red seal appears to be LI 黎, sometimes a surname. I'll try to upload some examples in seal script. Using Bill's info, the artist's name could be Li Jingwen.

It is possible that you may have missed one painting (or one beauty) since the three you had posted here are those of the "Four Beauties" or "Four Great Beauties" in ancient China.

The Four Great Beauties lived in four different dynasties, each hundreds of years apart. In chronological order, they are:

(1) Xi Shi 西施 (c. 7th to 6th century BC, Spring and Autumn Period), said to be so entrancingly beautiful that fish would forget how to swim and sink away from the surface when she walks by.
(painting at left of your picture)

(2) Wang Zhaojun 王昭君(c. 1st century BC, Western Han Dynasty), said to be so beautiful that her appearance would entice birds in flight to fall from the sky. (painting at right of your pictire)

(3) Diaochan 貂蝉 (c. 3rd century, Late Eastern Han/Three Kingdoms period), said to be so luminously lovely that the moon itself would shy away in embarrassment when compared to her face.(missing in your picture).

(4) Yang Guifei 杨贵妃(719–756, Tang Dynasty. also known briefly by the Taoist nun name Taizhen (太真), said to have a face that puts all flowers to shame. (middle of your picture)

I agree with Tom that the first chop displays the surname of the artist and he identified it as that of Li 黎 and the second chop (below it) displays the name (right to left)景文 of the artist. Good job, Tom. It would take me a lot of time to identify it.

The writings below the name of the beauty on each painting are:

庚子 - the year that was already identified by Bill;
冬月 - winter months, usually means October, November or December, most likely November in the Chinese lunar calendar.

仿 fang - means imitate or copy; used as "imitate" here.
元人 yuan ren - people (artists) lived during the Yuan dynasty.
筆意 bi yi - same as 畫意 hua yi
筆 bi means brush, or strokes made by a brush, to be a great Chinese painter/artist one must have good techniques of Chinese calligraphy, therefore a good Chinese painter is always a good calligrapher because good brush strokes used on paintings came from good brush strokes learned from calligraphy. Very often, just by judging the quality of an artist's penmanship you can tell how good his/her paintings would be. bi yi 筆意 here means the 意 essence or techniques of using the strokes in creating paintings. Some time it was called 畫意 hua yi, the essence or techniques of drawing.

景文 Jing Wen - name of the painter. (I google this name but couldn't find any known artists with this name)

Therefore the writing can be translated as:

To imitate the drawing essence of techniques of Yuan artists in the winter month of the year Gengzi, by Jing Wen.

Unfortunately I am not really impressed by his calligraphy but his drawings of the three beauties are actually not bad. I just hope you can locate the one missing beauty - Diaochan 貂蝉 although she is actually more a fictional character.

Hope this helps.

Super


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Beauties
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%8F%A4%E4%BB%A3%E5%9B%9B%E5%A4%A7%E7%BE%8E%E5%A5%B3
http://www.zyzw.com//twzs005.htm

Thanks everyone for the help. It seems I have found the right place to ask. Between the three of you I believe all of my questions were answered.

Thanks,
Jon

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