Handscroll/Sleevescroll of a landscape with green mountains
This scroll is a miniature copy of a very famous painting in the National Palace Museum collection by Huang Gongwang (1269-1354). It is signed by Tang Dai, an 18th century Qing court painter, at the end. The beginning of the original Huang painting was lost in a fire in the 17th century; both the lost part and the end are missing here. The quality is not terribly good. Tang Dai was a good painter, which makes his signature on this piece questionable. The original is discussed in Cahill's Hills Beyond the River and more recently by Mike Hearns in Possessing the Past.

Tang Dai (1673-after 1752) was a Manchu Bannerman active at the Qing court. Numerous paintings by him are in the two palace museums. This miniature painting, as mentioned earlier, is a copy of Huang Gongwang’s great Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, one of the most celebrated of all paintings in China and especially valued by the Qing court. I suspect that something like this was originally done for one of those curio cabinets that were favored by the Qing elite (many in the National Palace Museum). One often sees these kinds of small paintings occupying one of the drawers. As for Tang Dai’s authorship, it could be ok, though the scope of the painting and the miniature signature makes it hard to judge its authenticity.

Professor Peter Sturman, University of California, Santa Barbara

There is an inscription and two red ink seals in the lower left of the image.

Paint (greens, red, brown and black) on silk, with paper blocks for calligraphy (blank) and a light aqua blue and ivory silk brocade mounting.

Handscroll/sleevescroll of a famous painting in the National Palace Museum collection by Huang Kung-wang. The scroll depicts a landscape with green mountains. Water surrounds the mountians. There are fishermen on the water, and a few cottages on the shore.

This object has the following keywords:

• Mountains
• Paintings
• Screens and Scrolls

This object is a member of the following portfolios: