Gold on midnight blue
Gold paintings.
168 x 290 mm. 8 paintings in gold ink, 140 x 235 mm each, mounted on paper in accordion format, protected by silk paper opposite. Original wooden silk-covered boards.
€ 9.500,00
Eight paintings executed in gold ink on midnight blue paper, attributed in the title to Hua Ziyou, a painter active in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, during the late Qing period. The striking contrast of the colours, with gold on a dark background, was more typical for paintings on religious subjects in China, whereas this collection stands out through its largely secular choice of themes.
The subjects are evenly divided between human and natural, featuring an archer and three other men, two standing, one sitting on a prayer mat. The style is vivid, with the folds of their clothes picked out and giving a lively sense of movement and poise. The delicate willows by the shore of a lake, with mountains indicated in the distance, provide a contrast with a sense of repose, while the curious birds fix us with a quizzical, almost teasing stare.
The dominance of the simple contrast between the rich midnight blue of the backgrounds and the gold ink lends the sparse use of other colours a dramatic quality: the faces of the human figures and the light blue of a rock by which some wading-birds wait stand out with striking vividness. Hua Ziyou (courtesy name Yaomin) drew his inspiration from classic Chinese painters, particularly the style of Li Gonglin (1049-1106). His skilful attention to the outline of figures gives his work a fresh and lively character.
The narrow accordion format of this work is rare, with most recent sales of works by Hua Ziyou being unbound, individual pieces, only one album in a similar original binding being sold at auction in recent years.
A work distinguished by its striking contrast of tones and skilful execution, still in its original bound format.
Red ownership stamps from a Chinese collection.
Boards and cloth rubbed, the latter has partly come away especially at the margins, but still substantially intact. Binding cracked, adhesive between two accordion folds has come loose, pages with slight foxing and staining but overall clean and crisp. Paintings with some light soiling, colours still deep and elegant.
