Effect of Letter Wrting on a painting - 3: Sotheby HK auction preview 2017 - Shitao's twelve landscapes

Shitao (Yuanji) 1642-1707
LANDSCAPES

I visited Sotheby HK Spring Auction Preview 2017 and unexpectedly encountered Shitao's twelve jewel like landscape paintings.  Auction wise an estimate is not indicated but the word "God's work （神品）” (Note) is used. These are valueless works when considering quality and the age (historical importance) - made a rare talented painter more than 300 years ago and the very good storage condition keeping their vivid color, which is necessary to fully appreciate these great artist's original works. They were made on sketchbook like a bit hard paper with cover paper. This is a reason they have been kept well for a long period - three centuries. These paintings must go to some museum and allowed to be seen by public, not necessarily one in China (though China has many museum buildings now but generally they do not enough old masters' works to exhibit and now they are rich enough to purchase) when considering the global acceptance of these paintings. I saw some Shitao's paintings at the auction previews in HK before but all of them (not many however) somehow looked aged though showing Shitao's originality. These paintings are small so the letters on each painting becomes comparatively large as compared with the painting itself as you can see in the above painting. Shitao liked to fill a space with a painting and letters and usually a small space left, so arranged intentionally or intuitively, I think.


Note
"God's work （神品）" is seldom used despite that Chinese people tend to exaggerate when praising something. Even a very famous painter's fine work with an estimate exceeding HK$1,000,000 (US$128,000) is described as "Fine work （精品）".



Shitao (Yuanji) 1642-1707

LANDSCAPES

AAG