CHINESE PAINTINGS & CALLIGRAPHY

19th May 2020

Now accepting consignments for the 10th & 11th November sales.

A GIFT TO SAY FAREWELL Throughout Chinese history, it was a tradition for scholars to give their friends scroll paintings as gifts for celebrating important dates such as birthdays and weddings, but also as a way of saying farewell.

The image of a scholar under a willow tree represents friends saying goodbye. Breaking a willow branch to give to a leaving friend on their departure for a long journey is a custom which can be traced back to the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), and the imagery is frequently used in Chinese literature. The idea is that once the friend has arrived at their destination, they can plant the broken willow branch and it will regrow into a tree at this new place. The Chinese character for the word ‘willow tree’ is homophonous with the character liu, meaning ‘to stay’. Gifting a willow branch is therefore a gesture of asking the departing friend to stay as well as a way of showing how they will be missed and expressing good wishes for the future. This painting by Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) was a gift to his friend, the late James Kedzie Penfield (1908-2004), before Mr Penfield’s return to the United States from China. Mr Penfield visited Zhang Daqian’s studio twice before leaving, but he was out both times and so they were unable to say goodbye in person. With regret and a heavy heart, Zhang Daqian painted this picture depicting himself as a scholar underneath a willow tree as a means of saying farewell and wishing his old friend all the best for the future.

Similarly, this landscape painting by Pu Ru (1896-1963) was also gifted to a leaving friend. The picture was acquired at a Sotheby’s Hong Kong sale in 1990 by Tsui Tsuntong (1941-2010), also known as T. T. Tsui, who was a famous Chinese art collector, entrepreneur and the founder of the Tsui Art Foundation. Pu Ru was a cousin of the last Emperor of China, Pu Yi. In the painting, the scholar stands in front of a waterfall, admiring its beauty and listening to its cascading waters, comparing the sound to music played on the qin, a traditional Chinese instrument. The painting’s current owner worked in Hong Kong for over twenty years, the last two of which were spent working in T.T. Tsui’s companies, and this piece was given to him by Tsui before his return to Europe. 1

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