My wife recently got this and would like to know more about it. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks millions!
From the inscription, I assume that the painting was made in Vancouver during September or October 1937 or 1996 (they have the same year name in the Chinese calendar system), and also mentions Vancouver. I could not make out the names, though.
Wow, so painted in Vancouver- very interesting. Thank you Fly Pusher. My wife says 1937 is the only possibility since it has been in her family for a while. Would a more detailed photo of the inscription help?
The right line on the inscription says something like Directed by Miss Da Tu Ruo, possibly a transliteration of a Western name. I could not make out the last character, though, and I’m not 100% certain on the last character of the name, since I couldn’t find it in my dictionary.
The left line is something like: in the 8th month of the Bing Zi year by ‘Yu Jing Zhi’ (余静芝) (something) Vancouver (something). I couldn’t make out the 9th and last character.
I believe I’ve found the artist. She was one of the top modern female painters in China. She was born in 1890, and was a member of the Chinese Women’s Art and Calligraphy League (my own translation) founded in Shanghai in 1934. I was able to find this painting by her, and according to this site she was in Canada during 1936 at an exhibition and was in New York during 1937 to promote Chinese art. Her specialties are flowers and young women. Seems like everything fits. You’ve got a good piece there.
Wow Fly Pusher, you are amazing. My wife says it probably belonged to her Great Grandfather who was made chief of police in Vancouver in 1935. The wiki description hardly makes him seem like a friend to the chinese community, but strange things do happen where bigwigs are concerned. We have other tentacles out trolling for more information, so I will post any more information that comes to light. Again a huge thank you to ** Fly Pusher**, you are a credit to the board.
Wow, Fly Pusher, good work!
I was actually extremely lucky that the one bit of information I could find about the artist supports the date and location the painting was made. I’m sure someone with better knowledge of Chinese can tell you the full inscription, though.
I am a little unclear on the name of the artist Fly Pusher, so if I could trouble you for clarification? As I understand it the artist is “‘Yu Jing Zhi’ (余静芝)”? Again, thank you immensely for the replies.
Yeah, that’s it. Sorry if I was unclear. The name will not be romanized with the same spelling in any contemporary documents, though. It’ll probably be rendered as Yü Ching Chih, or possibly Yu King Tche.
I don’t think you were at all unclear, I was really just double checking. We have an email in to a Christie’s representative, so we may have more info to share soon. Apparently they are quite good about sharing information via email.