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Lot Essay
Expansive Grandeur—Shen Shichong’s “First under Heaven” Mountain Retreat
Shen Shichong, a native of Songjiang, was a student of Song Maojin (16th-17th Century) and Zhao Zuo (1573-1644) and was active in the Jiangnan region during the late Ming (1602-1641). He was skillful at painting landscapes and figures in the monochromatic outline style. Shen Shichong was a professional artist, a fact emphasized by the research of the scholar and calligrapher Qi Gong, who has argued that Shen Shichong had served as one of the ghost painters for some of Dong Qichang’s important works. Few works from his oeuvre have survived, with some of the known ones preserved at Beijing Palace Museum, Taipei National Palace Museum and Shanghai Museum.
The present Mountain Retreat is a monumental handscroll measured at fifteen metres. Long preserved by the Hosokawa family, it has been one of the most significant work in the collection of the Eisei Bunko Museum. It gained wider recognition after the publication of Suzuki Kei’s seminal Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Paintings in 1983, which gave it its current title. In compared with two other extant handscrolls by Shen Shichong currently at Shanghai Museum, Mountain Retreat is the lengthiest surviving work. It entered the collection of Chen Zongshi (1643-1719) in the early Qing. Since early 20th century, connoisseurs tend to call masterpieces “first under heaven.” Mountain Retreat truly deserves to be labeled “Shen Shichong’s first under heaven.”
With the sail boats, layered hills, tall pines, wide river, mountain dwellings, reclusive hermits, and fearless travelers, Shen Shichong weaves together a myriad of vignettes, evoking different emotions. He displays a mastery of composition and brush techniques, and transports the expansive grandeur of Jiangnan landscape from four hundred years ago in front of our eyes.
Shen Shichong, a native of Songjiang, was a student of Song Maojin (16th-17th Century) and Zhao Zuo (1573-1644) and was active in the Jiangnan region during the late Ming (1602-1641). He was skillful at painting landscapes and figures in the monochromatic outline style. Shen Shichong was a professional artist, a fact emphasized by the research of the scholar and calligrapher Qi Gong, who has argued that Shen Shichong had served as one of the ghost painters for some of Dong Qichang’s important works. Few works from his oeuvre have survived, with some of the known ones preserved at Beijing Palace Museum, Taipei National Palace Museum and Shanghai Museum.
The present Mountain Retreat is a monumental handscroll measured at fifteen metres. Long preserved by the Hosokawa family, it has been one of the most significant work in the collection of the Eisei Bunko Museum. It gained wider recognition after the publication of Suzuki Kei’s seminal Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Paintings in 1983, which gave it its current title. In compared with two other extant handscrolls by Shen Shichong currently at Shanghai Museum, Mountain Retreat is the lengthiest surviving work. It entered the collection of Chen Zongshi (1643-1719) in the early Qing. Since early 20th century, connoisseurs tend to call masterpieces “first under heaven.” Mountain Retreat truly deserves to be labeled “Shen Shichong’s first under heaven.”
With the sail boats, layered hills, tall pines, wide river, mountain dwellings, reclusive hermits, and fearless travelers, Shen Shichong weaves together a myriad of vignettes, evoking different emotions. He displays a mastery of composition and brush techniques, and transports the expansive grandeur of Jiangnan landscape from four hundred years ago in front of our eyes.