Lot Essay
Gu Heqing was born in Dantu, present-day Zhenjiang in Jiangsu Province. His zi, a style or name taken at the age of twenty, was Ziyu, and his hao, an assumed or alternative name Tao'an. He was very active as a poet and writer and excelled in xingshu and caoshu (running script and grass script galligraphy). Gu specialized in landscape painting and studied the mountainous landscapes of Song Dynasty painters, and the barren landscapes of the Four Great Masters of the Yuan Dynasty.