Yu Fei'an was a native from Penglai, in Shandong Province. He was the Deputy Director of the Chinese Painting Academy in Beijing. Yu Fei'an excelled in painting flowers and birds in the style of the Song Court Academy, characterized by fine brushwork and attention for detail, using bright colours and a vigorous delineation: the gongbi or 'meticulous' style. The present lot illustrated on the right, is rather unusual for Yu Fei'an, as it is mainly executed in the style of Mi Fu (Mi Fei, 1051-1107), who abandoned the drawn line altogether and formed his landscapes by rows of dots of wet ink, painted with the flat of the brush.