DONG QICHANG (1555-1646)

Details
DONG QICHANG (1555-1646)

Landscapes and Calligraphy

Album of ten round fans, ink or ink and color on gold-dusted paper or paper, each fan measures 12in. (30.5cm.) in diameter

a. Five Landscapes
Each entitled or inscribed with poetry, signed: Dong Xuanzhai or Xuanzhai and with one seal: Dong Qi Chang Yin

b. Five Fans with Running and Cursive Script Calligraphy (xing and cao shu)
Each inscribed with a poem and signed: Dong Qichang or Qichang and with one or two seals

One collector's seal

Two colophons, one each by the artist and Liang Zhangju (1775-1849)

Frontispiece by the artist

Label by Yan Shiqing (1873-1929)

Lot Essay

Dong Qichang's many landscapes painted on album leaves or fans vary widely in the amount of detail used. While some consist of richly detailed scenes rendered with a variety of different texture strokes, others were limited to a few natural elements quickly painted. The compositions and painting styles of the album offered fall in between these two parameters. Similarly detailed and textured depictions of full, although narrowly focused landscapes also characterizes an album of ten oval fans of calligraphy and landscape paintings in the Xubaizhai Collection (Ho, Wai-kam (ed.), The Century of Tung Ch'i-ch'ang 1555-1636, Kansas City, 1992, vol. 1, pl. 13).