Blissful Old Age (Landscape in the Style of Zhu Da)

Object Details

• Artist

  Zhang Daqian 張大千 (China, 1899-1983)

• Label

  Zhang Daqian painted this hanging scroll in 1940, when he was most directly influenced by the works of Bada Shanren. Having started his own collection of Bada's painting and calligraphy, Zhang had also begun to create both copies and forgeries of existing works by Bada, and to paint new works in the style of that earlier master. In this scroll, for example, Zhang combined elements from two different originals belonging to two different collections. Closely following Bada Shanren's characteristically dry and coarse brushwork, and careful to retain the proportions and detail of the original models, Zhang borrowed the overall landscape composition of the painting from an album leaf by Bada now in the Palace Museum, Beijing. However, he elongated the composition vertically to better suit the hanging scroll format and copied the inscription in the upper right corner of the painting from the title page of a second album in the Sen-oku Hakko kan museum, Kyoto.

• Provenance

  Yan Weicong, presented by the artist [1]

  From about 1981

  Rongbao Zhai, Peking, purchased from Yan Weicong in about 1981 [2]

  From 1987

  Freer Gallery of Art, purchased at auction, Christie's, New York, 1987 [3]

  Notes:

  [1] See Fu Shen, Challenging the Past: the Paintings of Chang Dai-chien (University of Washington Press, 1991) (according to Curatorial Note 3 in the object record).

  [2] Rongbao Zhai is a shop in Peking (see Curatorial Note 3 in the object record for a full explanation of this transaction.

  [3] Transferred to the Freer Permanent Collection from the Freer Study Collection on March 17, 1994 (see Curatorial Note 1, Elizabeth F. Duley, March 25, 1994, in the object record).

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  After the Madness: The Secular Life, Art, and Imitation of Bada Shanren (1626-1705) (February 16 to July 27, 2003)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Yan Weicong

  Rongbao Zhai

  Christie's (New York)

• Origin

  China

• Credit Line

  Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• Type

  Painting

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1940s

• Name

  Rongbao Zhai, Christie's, New York, Weicong, Yan

• Place

  China

• Topic

  Landscapes, Art, Chinese Art, Modern period (1912 - present)

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Paintings