Vimalakirti - After Li Gonglin

This is the third painting in my collection which relates to the recent Metropolitan Museum exhibition Anatomy of a Masterpiece: How to Read Chinese Paintings (see below Qian Xuan and Zhao Mengfu). The corresponding version in the exhibition is a handscroll on silk by Wang Zhenpeng - Vimalakirti and the Doctrine of Nonduality - a copy of a painting by Ma Yunqing (ca. 1230), itself a copy of a handscroll by Li Gonglin and presently in the Palace Museum, Beijing. This version is on paper, roughly the same size than the one in the MET, but different in quite a few ways. There are here two seated monks instead of one, and they are located more to the right of the couch, itself viewed from a different perspective and with a simplified treatment of the decorative elements. The painting is also not executed in the 'iron-wire' style of brushwork used by Wang Zhenpeng and the demonic beast is somewhat human-like, while Wang chose to depict it as a lion-dog. Could this copy be a forgery by Zhang Daqian, complete with a copious amount of seals and an imitiation of the calligraphic style of Emperor Song Huizong? I don't know, although one detail could point in that direction : the "flames" around the first figure on the right of the scroll (Manjusri?) are very similar in style to the ones Zhang often depicted in his copies of the cave temple murals of Dunhuang. One of these - Wugoucheng Bodhisattva - actually depicts Vimalakirti (and was the most daring forgery he sold to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts). [Clicking on any picture will enlarge it]

Album of Landscapes - Shi Tao

If in fact this album is by the hand of Shitao (1643-1707), it would be an example of his earliest style (c. 1667). (The issue of authenticity in Chinese painting is certainly a fascinating subject, which I hope will invite spirited comments on this blog!)

Similar views of Mount Huang by Shitao are published in Vol. I of The Century of Tung Chi-chang. These are in the Beijing Palace Museum collection and appear to be later works, for which the artist may have relied on memory. They are in a slightly wider format and more bluish in tone than the ones presented here.