Copy of Ni Tsan/Can 1353 Landscape

Ni Zan (1301-1374) was one of the most admired of China’s literati or scholar-gentlemen painters, and his works were eagerly collected and copied by other artists from his own lifetime to the modern period. This especially fine copy of the Yuan painter’s typical austere and spartan landscape mode was done by Wu Guxiang, a famous nineteenth-century painter who achieved recognition first around the area of modern Shanghai and later in Beijing. According to the inscription on the far left, Wu Guxiang obtained the original by Ni Zan in April of 1900 and executed this copy. His copy included another inscription by the famous Ming artist and connoisseur, Wen Zhengming, who states that he saw this painting by Ni Zan in the year 1551 at the home of the great collector Xiang Yuanbian.