In pre-modern China, there was probably no artist or art theorist who was as prolific and, at the same time, controversial as Dong Qichang. Dong's reform of Chinese painting and calligraphy, as well as his epoch-making theory of Southern and Northern Schools, fundamentally reshaped the historiography of Chinese art and impacted artists for the remainder of the imperial period. During Dong's lifetime, many forgeries of his works had already been circulating on the art market. With the Qing collectors' fervent pursuit of Dong's artworks, counterfeiting Dong's paintings and calligraphies also entered an unprecedented scale. This paper will take a closer look at a handscroll in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Entitled Cloudy Mountain in the Style of Mi Fu, this handscroll is labeled as a work after Dong Qichang. The primary objective of this paper is to determine whether or not Cloudy Mountain is a forgery. To achieve this goal, the present study will include a close-up examination of the painting, inscription, and seals on Cloudy Mountain and juxtapose them with those of Dong's genuine works. The stylistic and graphological analyses reveal that the Cloudy Mountain was not an authentic work by Dong Qichang, as disclosed by the anachronic use of Dong's seals and the suspicious adaptation of Dong's lyric poem in the colophon. In addition, this paper also affords a glimpse of how an anonymous Qing-dynasty painter had perceived, studied, and forged this well-celebrated Ming painting master.

Authors:
Boxi Liu, Bard Graduate Center, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Mr Boxi Liu is a University Doctoral Student at Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture in United States

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