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Hello,
I hope someone may help me about the paper folding fan painted with ink and color, you can see in the attached pictures. This is 37x65 cm framed.
It was bought in Hong Kong in the 1990s and I suppose it is from China but I am not sure...
So I would like so much to know which is the meaning of the writing and who is the painter.
Thanks a lot for your kind help and best regards,
Luciano

Signature reads,
蘭陵蕭晨并識　-　Picture and inscription by Lanling
Xiāo Chén
Seal,
蕭晨　-　Xiao Chen

Xiao Chen (Birth and death year unknown)
Poet and painter of early Qing Dynasty, from Yangzhou, Jiangsu.
Title of picture; " Picture of Dongpo obtaining antiquities"
The picture shows the scene Su Dongpo, Song Dynasty poet gathering with his friends to appreciate antiquities.

The original fan was painted in 1731 and is kept in the Peking Palace Museum Collections.

With regards,
I.Nagy

Hello Mr. Nagy,
I thank You so much for your fully exhaustive answer.
So I have understood that mine it's just a copy of a famous painting...
I must say that it had been sold in Hong Kong in the 1990s with the other one you may see in the attached pictures...
I know that you are very expert and very kind and so, please, I hope you may help me also about this other painting...
Thank you again and best regards,
Luciano

The Xiao Chen fan in the Palace Museum is not a famous painting, so it's interesting that your artist chose to make a very good copy of it. Here's the original; you can see differences in the seated figure, the items on the table, and the added table at the left in your fan, among other changes: https://en.dpm.org.cn/dyx.html?path=/tilegenerator/dest/files/image/8831/2009/0371/img0008.xml

Your second fan is not in the same league, unfortunately. It claims to be by Wu Bin 吳彬, a Ming landscape painter whose work looks nothing like this. Wu's portrait of a scholar's rock brought a record high price for a classical painting last year, but is stylistically very different from your fan: https://en.thevalue.com/articles/poly-auction-ten-views-lingbi-stone-handscroll-ming-dynasty-record

Hello Rat,
Thank you so much for your kind, very interesting, and to me important, explanations.
I had not noticed that the copyist of the work I have, added that table at left... Maybe because he had thought the original one was not complete... But anyway, I like it also for the matter itself, so well explained by Imre Nagy: Su Shi Dongpo and antiquarian scholars...
About the second painted fan, thank you also for having shared that article about Wu Bin's chinese Handscroll ‘Ten Views of Lingbi Rock’: this is simply an unbelievable and unique work. So my copy has Wu Bin's signature but it is not a copy of an original work by him: maybe the copyist has simply invented the subject and then tried to ennoble it by an important signature... Who knows.
Thank very much again and best regards,
Luciano

Yes, I think your inference about the "Wu Bin" fan is quite right. Actually I forgot that Wu did paint figures too, but very often eccentric-looking lohans (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/48948). Your fan is stylistically quite recent, not Ming.

The Xiao Chen copy is quite well done though, take good care of it. Here's the description of the Palace Museum version (in Chinese), just so you have it: https://www.dpm.org.cn/collection/paint/234047.html?hl=%EF%BF%BD%EF%BF%BD%CD%BC

Rat,
thank you so much also for your further news about the copy of the work by Xiao Chen (the chinese writing was not a problem: fortunately, google translator helped...).
Thank you also for the exempla of the figure paintings by Wu Bin: I think to have understood why he is so important... Looking at his drawings, I think at Leonardo da Vinci: I know that we cannot compare them because they belong at so different cultures... But the way he drawned that rock and also these other drawings is impressive. A really great Artist.
And I understand that my paper fan is absolutely not comparable with these masterpieces... And neither as a copy...

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