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This is a moldering old fan which seems to have been attached to some kind of backing. Sorry about the glare. The paint is missing in several areas and the paper looks quite old. It is signed. I was just wondering if it was older (like before the 20th C). I have taken a close up of the signature. Thanks.

Wouldn't want to get in fromt of rat on something like this, but the painting was done by a quite accomplished artist and may date to around the mid-19th century in my opinion. Its four-character inscription in black is almost on its left side. When righted, it looks like it probably reads down as 汝言粱壬 (ru yan liang ren), though I might be wrong about 粱 (liang). This has at least a couple of possibilities for translation. One is "Your words are as grand as choice foods", but 壬 (ren) can also lend the meaning of "deceptive" or "artful".

Best regards,

Bill H.

Thank you, Bill. Do you think the red characters are the artist's signature? The second one looked very distinctive to me, though I'm no expert.

Agree with Bill H., it's a decent quality genre scene, likely 19th century and painted by a professional painter. In trying to make sense of the inscription I found an article (link below) I haven't had the chance to look at carefully on a painter named 龍汝言 who was active in the mid-19th century. At the moment I am not confident that this artist and your picture are related, it's just a potential connection for investigation.

Bill, I think the rest of the inscription may be a name, 梁玉, which might make 汝言 a place name instead.


https://botanwang.com/articles/201602/%E8%B9%8A%E8%B7%B7%E6%B2%89%E6%B5%AE%E9%BE%99%E6%B1%9D%E8%A8%80.html

The image seems to depict a scene from literature rather than just a guy surrounded by his many boys, because to the right of the central gentleman are two small characters that seem meant as an identifying caption or label (which I can't quite read).

The seals are supplemental information about the artist's identity for sure, but are likely art or pen names that after being deciphered will require a bit of research to link to a painter, which may not in fact be possible. I can't read the first from this photo, the second may be 本.

in any case, a respectable collectible painting, though not meant as fine art per se at the time it was painted

Thank you, Rat for all of the information. Unfortunately, I don't read Chinese so that part I don't understand. I have taken another picture of the red seals area, hoping that it will display more clearly and that you may be able to decipher it. It is an interesting picture. When I used my magnifying glass to see if there were any Chinese characters I'd missed, I started noticing all sorts of little details, animals, flowers, food, which were simply fascinating to me. Thank you once again for your help with this.

You may be right on that name of 梁玉 (Liang Yu), rat. I could have been looking at what might be part of the painting and not a brush stroke. New spectacles have been ordered.

I got the impression from the Chinese-language article on Long Ruyan that he was a Qing scholar associated with a project begun by the Qianlong emperor and continued under the Jiaqing emperor to form a collection of early Qing art and literature by the emperors and Qing officialdom. If I get the drift of the article, Long made the palace eunuchs jealous enough to plot against him and bring about his disgrace.

This University of Pennsylvania piece mentions him and his work too:

http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1221&context=edissertations

Thanks,

Bill H.

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