2006: Landscape with the rock. Lan Ying (1585-1664)

Ink and colors on paper | H: 16,4 cm; L: 48,5 cm | Dated 1659

MC 2006-78.

Thanks to the support of the Antoni Laurent Foundation, the Society of Friends of the Cernuschi Museum has supported the action of the Circle of Connoisseurs of the Cernuschi Museum by donating a fan painting signed Lan Ying (1585-1664). The work dated 1659 bears a dedication by the author: "Painted to take leave of my brother Chun on the 15th of the first moon of the year Jigai". It is accompanied by a “Lan Ying” seal in red letters. The daring use of color, arguably the most radical of the pictorial innovations introduced by Lan Ying, is here manifested by the contrasting use of green, pink and white. The work can be compared to a masterpiece of fan painting due to Lan Ying's brush in the Nanjing Museum (Xu Huping (ed.): Chinese painting, Gems Collection in Nanjing Museum, Shanghai Classics publishing House, Shanghai, 1998, p.22). These two works dated 1659 indeed proceed from the same creative vein. The inscription specifies the circumstances of the genesis of the work; it is a gift made on the occasion of a departure. In doing so, she underlines the role played by painted fans in the sociability of the elites of the time.