ANONYMOUS (PREVIOUSLY ATTRIBUTED TO QU DING) | Red Evening Twilight and the Lone Swan

with three collects ors' seals Annotation at the mounting border by Di Baoxian (1873-1939), dated bings yin (1926)

Formerly in the collects ion of Di Baoxian

National Art Exhibition, Ministry of Education of China, April 1929

Rare Paintings of Sung and Yuan Dynasty-Ping Teng Ko collects ion, Youzheng Publishing, 1924, Subject 4
Di Baixian ed., National Art Exhibition, Zheng Yi Publishing , November 1929, pl. 5

Elegant in its style and sophisticated in its poetics, this work of Red Evening Twilight and the Lone Swan on silk captures the essence of the famous couplet by the ingenious early Tang poet Wang Bo. With no inscriptions nor seals, the piece was formerly attributed to be a work by Qu Ding from Song dynasty. According to the later colophon by Di Baoxian, it is known that this piece was from the late collects ion of calligrapher Deng Shiru, alongside with another piece attributed to a Tang Dynasty Painting, Maiden Appreciating Spring at the Courtyard (fig.1),and both of which had been acquired expensively. This work was published in Rare Paintings of Sung and Yuan Dynasty by Youzheng Publishing in 1924. It was later exhibited and published in the First National Art Exposition (fig.2). Coming from a lineage of art collects ors, Di Baoxian (1873-1939) was proficient in both calligraphy as well as art appreciation. He eastern t.mes s followed by Youzheng Publishing.The art collects ion of the Di’s family started from Di Baoxian’s ancestors. His father, Di Xuegeng (courtesy name Mannong, 1820-?) featured a prominent collects ion. As Di accounted, “My late father loved paintings as much as his own life. All four walls of our house were lined by important works by famous masters from different eras.” After Di’s death, his collects ion was entrusted to collects or Ye Gongchuo which, according to the accounts of calligrapher Chen Dingshan, would be passed on to Wei Tingrong, before finally ending up in the Shanghai Museum in the post-war era. Whether or not Red EveningTwilight and the Lone Swan had been passed on to Wei is yet to be investigated.