Footnotes

• 無名氏 青綠山水 册頁八開 設色絹本 約十七世紀
  
  The brilliantly vivid blues and greens that endow this album with its distinctive palette are due to the use of the mineral pigments azurite and malachite. Application of colors in such a way was popularized in the tenth century, however its origins can be traced centuries before. In later periods the blue/green palette was frequently employed to evoke the distant past, or images that illustrated Daoist themes. Whereas none of the leaves in this album are specifically identified by the artist through inscription, the Daoist imagery that pervades a number of the paintings suggests a connection. In addition to the mineral pigments, the artist of this album highlights the faceted rocks with slender gold, a technique known as jinbi shanshui.
  
  For a thorough discussion on this style of painting see Amy McNair "On the Meaning of the "Blue-and-Green Manner" in Chinese Landscape Painting" in Marsha Wiedner, ed. Perspectives on Heritage of the Brush， Spencer Museum of Art, 1997.
  
  The album is accompanied by a letter dated July 6, 1972 from Bernheimer Antiques in Cambridge, Massachusetts citing the opinion of Professor Max Loehr, who viewed the album and attributed it definitively to the Wanli period.
  
  The majority of the collectors' seals that grace the album's leaves belong to Pan Shicheng (1804 - 1873), an eminent Guangdong collector during the Qing Dynasty. In addition to his art collection, Pan Shicheng was known for his home, Haishanxian Guan, one of the most visited social elite mansions in China, and he was responsible for the production or sponsorship of numerous printed works on science, and the study and design of Chinese botany and garden culture.
  
  
  
  

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Paintings

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