Scene of West Lake

Guan Xining, Jiangsu Yangzhou native, was closed to the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, and had a special friendship with Wang Shishen. Guan dedicated this painting to Wang as a farewell souvenir. Wang inscribed on the painting in 1739, and Wang’s contemporaries wrote various colophons in which Gao Xiang made a sketch as well.
The work was later collected by Huang Yafu (Wong Ah Fook), a Singapore entrepreneur whose son Huang Zijing later gifted it to Luo Mingshi (Law Ming Shek) in 1939. It has been in the family collection since then.