Paysage au rocher

Lan, Ying 藍瑛

With the support of the Antoni Laurent Foundation, the Society of Friends of the Cernuschi Museum joined the museum’s Cercle des Connaisseurs in donating a fan painting by Lan Ying (1585-1664). This work dated 1659 carries a dedication by the artist – “Painted on taking leave of my brother Chun on 15 of the first moon of the year Jigai” – with the “Lan Ying” seal in red characters. The bold use of colour, no doubt the most radical of Lan Ying’s painterly innovations, is here manifested in the contrasting use of green, pink and white. The work is comparable to a masterpiece of fan painting by Lan Ying in Nanjing Museum (Xu Huping (ed.): Gems of Collections in Nanjing Museum: Chinese Painting, Shanghai Classics, Shanghai, 1998, p. 22). These two works dated 1659 share the same creative process. The inscription describes the circumstances of the work’s genesis – it is a departure gift – underscoring the role played by painted fans in the social life of the elite at the time.