Xiao Yuncong 1596-1673

Inscription on painting by Chen Guan (1563-?), signed Hanyin Chen Guan, with one seal, chen guan
Titleslip by Yu Lanchang (unidentified), dated jimao, autumn, with one seal, yu lan chang
With one collector's seal of Zhu Zhichi (17th century), zhu wo an shou cang yin; one collector's seal of He Weipu (1842 -1922), yi su zhai; and one collector's seal of Kong Jijiong (18th century), su wang liu shi jiu shi sun ji jong tu ji

Christie's New York, Fine Chinese Paintings, June 3, 1987, lot 96

1. Heritage of the Brush: The Roy and Marilyn Papp Collection of Chinese Painting, Phoenix Art Museum, March 18- May 7, 1989; Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, March 8-April 22, 1990; Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, September 28-November 24, 1991; Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, October 25-December 27, 1992; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, April 18-June 20, 1993; Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, January 29-March 20, 1994; Crocker Art Museum, California, October 30-December 31, 1997; Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, January 31-March 28, 1999; Fleming Museum of Art, University of Vermont, October 3-December 10, 2000
2. Lyrical Traditions: Four Centuries of Chinese Paintings from the Papp Collection, The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, June 22-October 7, 2007

1. Heritage of the Brush: The Roy and Marilyn Papp Collection of Chinese Painting, Phoenix Art Museum, 1989, cat. 13, pp. 52-55
2. Ju-hsi Chou, "From Chen Guan to Xiao Yuncong", in Marsha Weidner (Ed.), Perspectives on the Heritage of the Brush, University of Kansas, 1997, fig. 1, 2, 4, 8, pp. 1-21
3. Ju-hsi Chou, Silent Poetry: Chinese Paintings from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015, fig. 3, pp. 354-355

- Paper suffering some creases and small areas of loss.
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From Chen Guan to Xiao Yuncong
Ju-hsi Chou

The title of this paper might suggest that there is historic relationship between the two artists. This is not so. Chen Guan was a Suzhou Painter, active in the late Ming. In all probability he did not survive beyond the fall of the dynasty in 1644. Xiao Yuncong, on the other hand, lived until 1673. Xiao Yuncong was from Dangtu, in Anhui province, and was famed for having made two series of wood-block prints, Lisao tu (Illustrations of "Encountering Sorrow") and Taiping  Shanshui shihua (Poems and paintings of the landscape of Taiping prefecture). He also was influential. In addition to being acclaimed as the founder of the Gushu school, he exerted a measure of influence on the monk-painter Hongren.

The only connection between the two artists is a handscroll in the Roy and Marilyn Papp collection of Chinese painting (lot 520). This handscroll, published as the work of Chen Guan, perhaps should be reattributed to Xiao Yuncong. Measuring roughly 30 by 286 centimeters, it features a panoramic view of a landscape in four segments. The first segment contains surging mountains and rising peaks, in the midst of which a pine forest hides a monastic site from which a pagoda rises. Immediately afterward, in the second segment, a swirling cloud reaches over to hug the distant cliff. Below are rice paddies, villages, and land rich with vegetation. Further on, a river appears. Fed by cascades, its expanding surface is intersected by pathways, a bridge, and land formations. After having yielded to other varieties of trees, the pines reappear in the third segment. The pines are on a march, a part of the palpitating masses over boulders and peaks. The core of this segment lies between the sweeping curves of a massive mountain and the sudden appearance of an imposing cliff. In the last segment, the landscape lowers itself. Rows of trees are seen in the foreground. A few more mounds rise briefly above them, then sink back. One has a flat top, a familiar feature seen throughout the painting.

The scroll bears a poetic inscription with a signature of Chen Guan and a cyclical date of dinghai. Written in the clerical style, the verse reads as follows:
I planted pines for their refined spirit – and to unveil a lofty mind.
A rock-cut cave concealed a thatched cottage, with green shade all year around.
The white cloud had no will of its own, winding its way to a secluded forest.
All sounds of Nature suddenly ceased, as a light breeze deprives the music of its force.
Neither could this sentiment be feigned, Nor could this scene be easily found.
Facing thousands of peaks, "Let us play a duet on the five-string qin."
Peach blossoms lined [the shores of] the emerald stream.
Without us being aware, spring deepened.

On the whole, this is an extraordinary painting – and an ambitious one. The brushwork is strong and confident, and the whole scroll exhibits a tautness in its design and conception. Bold and dramatic contrast alternates with subtle and intriguing passages. Still, one may note that the beginning is quite abrupt, without adequate transition or preparation. It involves us far too quickly in the drama of competing elements. But this may not be the artists' fault; cutting and trimming may have taken place, as is normal in old scrolls. Likewise, at the very end one can detect signs that perhaps the scroll once went on further. These are flaws in preservation, and a critical assessment may be necessary. But the first task is to ascertain the validity of the scroll's attribution to Chen Guan.

I.
Doubts about this painting and its authorship have been accumulating in my mind for some time. Initially they involved the date of the painting and the known chronology of the artist Chen Guan; then they extended to the matter of style, personal and period.

The cyclical date dinghai could be either 1587 or 1647. It is documented that Chen Guan was born in 1563.¹ In 1587, the artist would have been 25 sui. The alternate, 1647, would put him at 85. So for this scroll he appears to have been either too young or too old. For the first date, the question is: at the early age of 25, could Chen Guan have painted with such authority? Could he have conceived such a sustained and integrated composition and brought it forth with so much élan? Granted, there may be artists of such precocity, but one doubts that this is the case here. Besides, in Chen Guan's existing corpus, no work can be given a date earlier than 1600. Of the works once thought to have been done in the pre-1600 period, one is definitely a fake, and three others are best placed sixty years later.² But should we choose 1647, i.e., sixty years later, as the date for the Papps' scroll it not only would place the artist at the advanced age of 85, but would also make this handscroll the very latest painting in his present corpus. Only one other painting attributed to Chen Guan is dated to the same year of dinghai.³ Done in the orthodox style, it is so far from his known works that it is even less likely than the Papps' scroll to be from his hand. In short, Papps' painting would appear to be a dangling coda in the artist's corpus, something not at all typical and oddly out of place.

But assuming that the painting is not improbable as a work of Chen Guan, we need to answer two additional questions to accept it as dating to 1647. First, did Chen Guan truly live that long? There was some speculation that he lived to 90 or 100 years of age! However, given the fuller evidence available today this appears unlikely. So far the year 1563 has held firm as the date of his birth. A secure foundation for his chronology is further provided by four paintings carrying Ming imperial reign titles plus cyclical dates equivalent to 1622, 1628, 1630 and 1635, when the artist was, respectively, 60, 66, 68 and 72 years of age. These paintings tie in well with other pictorial evidence roughly datable to between 1601 and 1639.⁴ After a continuous sequence of paintings done in the 1620s and 1630s, there is an inexplicable hiatus of five years before we come to a work of 1644, then the two dated 1647. The chronological pattern alone seems to indicate that those dated to the 1640s may not be reliable and require careful scrutiny. Second, if Chen Guan did live to the age of 85, did he maintain the level of strength and precision seen in the Papps' scroll? Very few painters, save perhaps Li Tang and Wen Zhengming, combined longevity and health. For the less fortunate, at 85 weakened eyes and shaky hand were the rule. No signs of such physical decay can be detected in the Papps' scroll. The brushwork reflects an artist at full vigor.

The age factor aside, our main contention is that there is not a single painting from any point in Chen Guan's career that remotely resembles the Papps' scroll. In general, Chen Guan followed in the footsteps of another Suzhou artist, Qian Gong. His approach can be described as an impeccable presentation of figurative and anecdotal elements in the context of a landscape noted for its silky surface. Only occasionally did he venture out of this mode and create a rougher, yet resonant, texture – in the vein of Wen Boren. The majority of his works, however, present silky tapestries of hills and peaks, sometimes with slender and tall trees reaching upward to command attention.

Far from such a visual range, the Papps' scroll is textually and rhythmically diverse. This diversity takes place amidst a remarkably intricate composition that verges upon the topographical. In this way, it effectively distances itself from Chen Guan's pictorial vision. Also alien to this vision are, first of all, the combination of faceted rocks and curving mountain, and secondly, the frequent use of the flat-top plateau as a leitmotif – features reminiscent of the Yuan master Huang Gongwang. With these elements and also the preference for jagged edges, sharp angles and austere tones, this painting contains more than a touch of Anhui School flavor, rather than that of the late-Ming Wu School. Whoever the artist may be, his brush certainly slashes with authority and sureness. At times the brushwork is crossed over by Mi dots and supported by a liberal spread of ink washes; somewhere between the astringent and the moistened, it is neither uniform nor silky smooth. We have not even mentioned the pagoda, the rice paddies, the animated cloud formation, or the variety of trees, but motif by motif, species by species, we could demonstrate their incompatibility with those in Chen Guan's paintings.

In short, the artist who painted the Papps' scroll could not have been Chen Guan. Moreover, he has to have been someone from the Anhui region.

The case appears convincing enough. However, let us admit that it is still conceivable to raise objections again a comparative study such as this one. It might be argued, for instance, that Chen Guan might have had a wider range of styles than is represented in his surviving paintings. Given that painters in China often assume a variety of personas, why should we limit Chen Guan's capacity to that represented by his few extant works? To answer this, we will move from a focus on artistic personality to a broader investigation of temporal ambiences and associated styles. An artist may choose to paint in any give mode. It is assumed however that he will not be able to cross the boundaries of his time. From this perspective, Chen Guan may be described as an artist who essentially remained within the late-Ming milieu. In contrast, the style of the Papps' painting has gone beyond that time, into the early Qing period.

Let us define the late-Ming style in this way: it was founded on, but was also a reaction to, the mid-Ming preference for serial arrangements of planes. This preference was marked in the Wu school, with which Chen Guan was affiliated. On the whole, artists of the mid-Ming saw objects as planes and reduced them to paper-thin shapes. The same applied to the depth axis, which could be easily compressed. Intervals between planes may be minimal, but their consistency marks a pace of progression, thereby regulating the pictorial events. In the Late Ming, painters including Chen Guan still adhered to this mode. At times, however, they also attempted to do the opposite, i.e. to inflate the planes into rounder volumes. In the process, they also had to extend the depth axis. This interfered with the creation of a regulated tempo. Some late-Ming artists, such as Chen Guan, opted instead for compositions employing series of S-curves. In such pictures we sense intuitively when the mountains are bring bent this or that way. It is almost as if the landscape is conforming to a pre-existing order, one which is not inherent but imposed.

With the cadence so set, movement in a late-Ming painting can be orderly or restless. However, no late-Ming painting carries the full complex of undulations and changes to the extent found in the Papps' handscroll. Whoever the author of this scroll is, he has allowed the rocks and boulders, hills and trees – the full assemblage – to find their own inner potential. The artist's role is not to exert control over landscape, but to discover and explore it. The absence of repeated S-curves as guidelines thus is fitting. Here the interplay is varied and involved: solid and void, advancing and retreating, shifting and swaying, etc. In contrast to paintings of the late-Ming period, here one can seldom predict with any degree of precision the next stage of change in direction, in scale or in intensity. The landscape builds up, subsides and then rises again, but in the process, the context has changed and also the topography.

We must conclude, therefore, that the Papps' scroll has gone beyond Chen Guan in time and in conceptual framework. It has reached a stage characteristic of the early Qing, specifically the second half of the seventeenth century. A feature that locks it in place within that century, and not in the eighteenth century or beyond, is the lingering tendency to cause rocks or clouds to bend and turn in angles and ways for overt directional emphasis. (Paintings by Zhao Zuo, Dai Benxiao, Xiang Shengmo, and others come to mind). This characteristic may be a vestigial remain of late-Ming style, one which vanished altogether during the last decades of the seventeenth century.

Returning to the Papps' scroll, if Chen Guan's authorship is open to doubt, then it follows logically that the inscription, the signature and seal are all spurious. That the individual who faked the inscription was knowledgeable about Chen Guan and his paintings is attested by his effort to simulate the artist's signature. This he executed after cutting the scroll, possibly to produce two separate paintings. Among the collector's seals, that of Zhu Zhichi at the end of the scroll is also suspect. It could have been added after the picture was cut to give it a semblance of pedigree. Zhu Zhichi was an early-Qing collector from Xiuning, in Anhui, whose Zhu Wo'an cang shu hua mu (Catalogue of paintings and calligraphy collected by Zhu Wo'an) failed to record a single work by Chen Guan. However, an orchid and bamboo handscroll by Xiao Yuncong was among his prized possessions.

II.
Who could have painted this scroll? We've already suggested Xiao Yuncong, and will now provide evidence toward that attribution. Whether it is Xiao Yuncong or not, the artist has to be a seventeenth-century painter who lived into the early Qing, i.e. post-Chen Guan. Given the painting's potential length, the artist also had to be at home with this format. While this was not exactly a unique qualification at the time, his considerable ease in handling may still be admired. His is not the orthodox style; it is different from that of the Four Wangs. We fail to observe here any extensive usage of pima cun ("hemp-fiber" texture stokes) or the broad range of mountains formed using this technique typically found in their work. The painter may have derived his art from Huang Gongwang, a major master to whom the orthodox school was equally indebted. That connection, as we stated before, yields the faceted crystal rock formations atop the broader curves of the earthen mounds, and the recurring flat-top ridges and plateaus. However, the author of the Papps' scroll channels the legacy of Huang Gongwang in the direction of the Anhui school. Even the animated cloud formation here elicits an echo from Hongren's work,  not to mention Xiao Yuncong's own painting The Sea of Clouds among the Peaks of Huangshan, and Pure Tones among Hills and Water, all of which carry similar if not identical, cloud passages. This is one detail in the Papps' scroll which led me to Xiao Yuncong. More than any other Anhui artist, this painter possessed a fertile pictorial imagination. He favored the tangible and the concrete, not the abstract and the typical, as found, for example, in the art of Hongren. All signs support a potential link between the Papps' scroll and the art of Xiao Yuncong.

To pinpoint Xiao Yuncong as the author of the Papps' scroll, however, is no easy matter. He was an extremely versatile artist. As a cross-section of his works plainly shows, consistency in style was never his foremost goal. He exerted effort in varying his approach and refused to relent in this even in his late years. The loss of a bulk of his paintings over time has further undermined our understanding of the internal linkage once present among his works. Except for small clusters of related works, the majority of his extant pictures appear to be stylistically isolated from each other.

This means that the Papps' painting will not find an exact parallel in Xiao Yuncong's surviving works. But this does not prevent us from finding a range of affinities in specific cases. A handscroll in the Tokyo National Museum, Travelers in Autumn Hills, dated two or more decades before 1657, contains a number of motifs similar to those in the Papps' scroll: a Pagoda on the hill, a figure on a horse, coolie carrying loads. The Tokyo scroll also displays a similar range of tree types and, in addition, features a pine grove akin to that in the Papps' scroll, with angular tree trunks and sharp twisting branches (Figure 1). Xiao's Guiyu yiyuan tu, dated 1656, also provides a network of linkages. Even though it was based on a composition authored by a contemporary monk named Jingru, it has many elements for which the Papps' scroll is known. Pagodas and temples appear in a number of settings. Rice paddies also appear. Flat-top boulders and mountains are plentiful, not to mention rocky cliffs, flowing water, winding shore lines, roads, etc.

Neither Travelers in Autumn Hill nor Guiyu yiyuan tu are exactly comparable to the Papps' painting. The motifs are perhaps the same, but the treatments differ. In the former scroll, the brush mode is sharp and cutting, a far cry from the freely moving stokes as seen in the Papps' scroll, with a partial leaning to the side rather than being focused at the tip; the resultant landscape emits a high-pitched, nearly shrill tonality. As full and rich as the pictorial range is in the latter scroll, it appears to succumb to topographical concerns, so much so that its mimetic interest cuts across or into its structural flow. By contrast, the Papps' scroll strikes one as being assured and strong, freely exploring and venturesome, able to pause and relax before the onset of tension. Nevertheless, both Travelers in Autumn Hills and Guiyu yiyuan tu are useful in that they provide a broad framework that brings us a step closer to the attribution of the Papps' scroll to Xiao Yuncong.

In sum, paintings done by Xiao Yuncong through the 1650s yield similar motifs, but fail to match the Papps' painting in presentation. The logical place to turn, then, is those dated in the 1660s or, ideally, even the early 1670s. But curiously, even though Xiao Yuncong lived to 1673, none of his known works date beyond 1669. A fan in the Seattle Museum carries only a cyclical date (renzi). It has been assumed to be 1672, although 1612, a cycle earlier, would be far more appropriate. The nondescript handling of the brush and the unresolved tension arising from the emphasis given to the circular cave are suggestive of a younger artist still in search of a personal style.

Scanning Xiao Yuncong's surviving works of the 1660s, we can find a number of parallels to the Papps' scroll, ranging from roughly comparable to far more exact correspondences. In rock formations, for instance, we may observe an analogous pattern in the Papps' scroll and Xiao's 1665 painting Playing the Lute under Pine Trees, in the Xubai zhai collection. An "L" shaped rock, like a bread loaf, can be seen in both. Closer in approach is the Airing of Books on a Stone Terrace of 1669, which compares favorably with the initial segment of the Papps' painting, with alternating larger and smaller forms, in the vein of Huang Gongwang. One should note, however, that Xiao Yuncong's handling of the hanging scroll format differs markedly from what he does with the handscroll. For a close comparison, we may need to search the latter category. For that, let us turn to the Landscape Handscroll, also dated 1669, in the Los Angeles County Museum (Figure 2).

In its range of trees, the Papps' scroll is essentially identical with the Landscape handscroll in Los Angeles County Museum. Unlike the comparison drawn above to the earlier Travelers in Autumn Hills, in this comparison both the motifs and the treatment match. The following examples are illuminating: tree leaves of circular dots; trees with leaves done by a series of vertical, downward slashing strokes; trees with leaves done in curved horizontal sweep; trees with dotting for foliage; willows with sweeping branches painted in simple curving strokes over a color tint. Besides the pines with angular trunks and branches noted earlier, the Papps' scroll features two additional varieties that find counterparts in the Los Angeles County Museum's scroll: mid-distance groves of pines featuring regular, not angular trunks, straight pine needles drawn closely toward a point, and foliage terminating in a series of shovel-shaped bundles; and pine groves in the far distance, spreading in a fan-like manner. Here again both the motifs and the handling are identical, lending support to Xiao Yuncong's authorship of the Papps' scroll.

One may, of course, question the wisdom of dwelling on tree renditions rather than on such matters as cun (texture stokes) or rock formations. As we stated above, given the constant fluctuation in Xiao Yuncong's style, exact parallelism is rare. Even the Landscape in the Los Angeles County Museum displays a different approach. It insinuates a curvilinear mode into the angular framework, increasing the malleability of the forms. However, a key element uniting the Papps' scroll with Xiao's work from the mid-60s onward is the mixing of free contouring through side strokes with broad bands of wash. The latter, the washes, do not always abide by the former, but are freely applied. The resultant streaks of light in the boulders add a new dimension of movement or counter-movement within the landscape itself. Both the Los Angeles County Museum's Landscape (1669) handscroll and Pure Tones among Hills and Water (1664) in the Cleveland Museum may be cited for this revealing feature. Between them, the latter leans closer to the Papps' scroll by virtue of the forcefulness of its brushwork.

If there is any further doubt of Xiao Yuncong's hand in the Papps' scroll, let us dispel it once and for all by examining the inscription on the scroll and the scroll and the clues it provides. As one may recall, this inscription contains a verse, which is translated above. The very same verse, surprisingly, is attached to the Cleveland Museum's scroll of 1664.

How could the Papps' scroll, wrongly attributed to Chen Guan, contain a verse favored by Xiao Yuncong? The coincidence is difficult to believe. The only rational explanation would be that this verse was present when the scroll was still intact. Whoever wrote the inscription here had it summarily transcribed at the time when the scroll was cut. It could not have taken place in any other way. Nowhere is this verse recorded. Xiao Yuncong's literary work entitled Meihua tang gao is lots. His surviving poems, numbering no more than thirty, appear in Huang Yue's compilation Xiao tang erlao yishi hebian. Suffice it to say that this particular verse is not among them. We have also conducted a fruitless search for the verse among the master's recorded paintings and extant works.

However, there are some useful hints regarding Xiao Yuncong's authorship of this poem. The presence of minor differences in phrasing between the Papps' version and that on the Cleveland scroll hints at the possibility. Only an author himself could feel free to tinker with the poem after it was written. Note the following variations:
On the Cleveland Museum's scroll: "The white cloud desired not to emerge." On the Papps' scroll: "The white cloud had no will of its own." In addition, it is important to point out that the poem does not exist idly, but contains pictorial references found in the scroll. Not only are the pine trees mentioned in the first and second line conspicuous throughout both scrolls, but the third and fourth lines of the poem point to a specific image: "A rock-cut cave concealed a thatched cottage, with green shade all year around." Indeed, in Pure Tones among Hills and Water one may observe a thatched cottage nestled in a rock-cut cavern surrounded by bamboo. In this way, poetry and painting reinforce and enrich each other (Figure 3).

Which came first, the poem or the imagery? If it was the poem that inspired the painting, then the latter is simply illustrative in nature. But, in point of fact, this image of a cottage within a cave came about at least two years before the Cleveland Museum's scroll was painted. In A Magnificent View of Green Peaks, dated 1662, Xiao Yuncong fashioned this very same image of cottage within a cave without, significantly, the identical poetic accompaniment. Its absence could conceivably argue for the priority of the pictorial image. If so, this would lend further weight to the contention that Xiao Yuncong authored the verse, and in turn, the painting itself.

Returning to the Papps' scroll, we may note that it lacks this cottage-within-a-cave motif. However, given the scroll's incomplete state and the artist's interest in enforcing a coherence between poetic and pictorial ideas, the likelihood that this image was once present is quite strong indeed.

When, within the decade of 1660s, did Xiao Yuncong paint the Papps' painting? The poem gives us an inkling that it was around 1664. In style, too, the closest parallels to the Papps' scroll remain Pure Tones among Hills and Water of 1664 and Landscape of 1669. Compared to the former, the Papps' scroll evinces a relaxed tempo, breaking away from its tightened structure and insistence on pebble-like closure. Compared to the latter, the Papps' painting is largely free of its tendency to give an extra touch of flow and flux to the rock formations; otherwise the two correspond closely in the range and rendition of trees.

The approximate chronological position of the Papps' scroll, then, is between 1664 and 1669. It shares with Pure Tones of 1664 poetic imagery and a toughened brushwork, while most closely resembling Landscape of 1669 in its repertory and treatment of vegetation. We will suggest that it be dated 1666 or 1667, around the time Xiao Yuncong became a septuagenarian. Clearly the painting stands as personal synthesis for the artist, absorbing and transforming elements of several decades, reaching at least as far back as the Tokyo National Museum's painting. By any standard, the Papps' scroll measures well against the best of the master's known works, representing an artistic height before his gradual decline in vigor.

III.
There is still this nagging question: why should a painting by Xiao Yuncong, who is well known, be signed over to Chen Guan, who is much less known? Given the profit motive underlying many reattributions, this is nothing short of startling. It may be that, when the painting came into the hands of the anonymous dealer, the signature of the artist was no long legible. Out of a need to acquire an author for this particular segment of the scroll, he could have decided that Chen Guan was a good candidate as any. Perhaps the dealer was himself a Suzhou native and active in that city where Chen Guan had left his impression.

In recent times a number of paintings credited to Chen Guan have come into the auction houses. This is good for the artist's reputation and for those who display an interest in him. Equally evident, however, is a tendency to use him as an artistic catch-all, a figure to which unwanted and unknown paintings could be easily reassigned. The fact that Chen Guan's birth and death dates are still uncertain does not appear to deter some unscrupulous dealers from fabricating works under his name or concocting inscriptions ostensibly by him on existing paintings originally authored by individuals unrelated to him. For the same reason, the recent emergence of his paintings thought to be dated in the 1640s should be greeted not with enthusiasm, but with caution.

The whole trend is alarming. Not too long ago, the artists most frequently faked were the great masters. Now, the case of Chen Guan suggests a turnabout. Sophisticated dealers are plying their trade on unsuspecting souls by turning minor figures, especially as their profitability is on the rise. Art historians can no longer be complacent about relying on minor artists in assessing the art of major masters. We need to look at works assigned to minor figures with the same degree of alertness previously accorded to the likes of Shen Zhou and Wen Zhengming, Shitao and Bada, Wang Hui and Yun Shouping, Hongren and Xiao Yuncong.

The irony, however, is that, contrary to all known occurrences, the Papps' scroll acquired a minor artist as its pseudo-author after losing its identity as the work of a major figure. In that respect, our "restoration" is doubly satisfying. Not only have we returned the scroll to Xiao Yuncong, but in the process also recovered a "lost" master piece. No one can again study the master without taking this splendid scroll into consideration.

Notes:
1. Li Zuoxian, Shuhua jianying, vol. 15, p.13. This records an album of leaf in which renshan (1632) was said to be when Chen Guan reached seventy sui. Tracing back seventy-nine years, this means that his birth year would be 1563.
2. The relevant paintings are: 1) Detaining Guest(s) in a Mountain Studio, cyclical dated gengwu, formerly read 1570, now read 1630; see Shibai zhai shuhua hu, juan 9, (Zhongguo Shuhua Quanshu, Shanghai: Shuhua Chubanshe, 2009, 2nd ed., vol. 10, p. 600); 2) Travellers on the Mountains, formerly dated 1571, now dated 1631; see Li Chu-tsing, A Thousand Peaks and Myriad Ravines: Chinese Paintings in the Charles A Drenowatz Collection, Ascona, Swizerland: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 1974, fig. 13, pp. 77-79; and 3) Lingering in the Pine Grove, formerly dated 1571, now dated 1631; see Pan Zhengwei and Pan Jitong, Tingfan lou shuhua ji, juan 3, (Zhongguo Shuhua Quanshu, Shanghai: Shuhua Chubanshe, 2009, 2nd ed., vol. 16, p. 728).
3. Christie's New York, Fine Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy, June 2, 1992, lot 58.
4. The four paintings are: 1) Rain on Banana Leaves by the Study Window, dated in the year of renxu during the Tianqi reign (1622), Shiqu Baoji Xubian (Catalogue of the Qing imperial collection continuation), Shanghai Shudian Chubanshe, 2011, p. 1633; 2) Landscape, dated the first year of Chongzhen (1628), Sotheby's New York, Fine Chinese Paintings, December 6, 1989, lot 59; 3) Lofty Hermit in Autumn Hills, dated in the year of gengwu during the Chongzhen reign (1630), now in the Guangdong Provincial Museum; 4) Flower Field and Bamboo-Lined Stream, dated the ninth year of the Chongzhen reign (1635), Shiqu Baoji Sanbian (Catalogue of the Qing imperial collection, third part), Shanghai Shudian Chubanshe, 2011, p. 2024.