Calligraphy

This collection of paintings comes from Hsiao-wen Chen, many of which were gifted directly from Fu Xuewen. Fu Xuewen (1903-1992) was the wife of Shao Lizi, governor of Shaanxi Province in the 1930s. Shao and General Zhang Zhizhong acted as chief peace negotiators between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek.
Together with her husband, Fu founded a private school in Xi'an. When the Communist government took over in 1949, Shao donated the school to the government and in return, was gifted Qi Baishi's Lychees and Grasshoper (Lot 2033), originally purchased from Rong Baozhai in Beijing.
Fu was a member of the prestigious government advisory congress and lived in the exclusive apartment complex "Hong Xia" on Tiananmen Square, which she shared with other important female figures such as Deng Yingchao, wife of Zhou Anlai and Song Qingling, wife of Sun Yarsen.
As Fu had no children of her own, she gifted her possessions to her god-daughter Hsiao-wen Chen, daughter of Lei Baohua, Chief of the Construction Department of the Shaanxi Provincial Government and Lu Wangzhi, who named their daughter after Fu.