Hua Xuan (circa 1736), Eight Beauties

Hua Xuan (circa 1736), Eight Beauties

signed Hua Xuan, with a cyclical date bing chen corresponding to 1736, inscribed chang xia rong qi (can be translated as, 'long summer evenings by the hibiscus stream'). ink and colors on silk, original silk border, laid down on canvas and stretched on a wooden frame. 130 x 52 in., 330.2 x 132.1 cm. Estimate 200,000—300,000 USD

PROVENANCE: E. A. Strehlneek (until 1914).
Herr Klas Fahraeus, Brevik, Stockholm.
Charlotte Horstmann & Gerald Godfrey, Ltd., Hong Kong (until 1992).
Thereafter with the present owner.

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES: E. A. Strehlneek, Chinese Pictorial Art, Shanghai, 1914, pp. 178-183.
Anthony Lawrence, The Taipan Traders, Hong Kong, 1992, p.56.

NOTE: This exceptionally rare painting is unusual for its large size and subject matter. The depiction of a group of women is a departure from the typical meiren (literally 'beautiful woman') paintings found during this period. Whereas the conventional depictions feature one or two women, usually in well-appointed interiors, the women in the present painting exist in a realm that blurs the public and private. Glancing "outward", the women are framed by architectural components -- a balustrade at the foreground and cornice framing the top -- that create a sense of intimacy while simultaneously providing a stage on which the women are prominently presented. These qualities, together with the large format, suggest that this painting was intended for public display.

Who were these women? According to James Cahill in the forthcoming Pictures for Use and Pleasure: Vernacular Painting in High Qing China, Berkeley, 2009, 'Conceivably, the women portrayed were real-life courtesans belonging to a particular house, like those who sometimes appear in Japanese ukiyo-e print series; although at first glance they look almost indistinguishable from one another (like the women in the Japanese prints), they exhibit subtle differentiations in facial shape and color and other features that might have permitted afficionados of the time to identify them.'

Little is known about the painter Hua Xuan, though according to Yu Jianhua in Zhongguo meishujia renming zidian, p. 1110, 'he was from Wuxi in Jiangsu, and was good at portraiture.' The cyclical date bing cheng most likely corresponds to 1736, as the facial features of the women closely resemble those in an erotic album by Xu Mei, an artist active in the early 18th century based in nearby Suzhou. The delicate facial type may also be related to those in an erotic album by the court painter Leng Mei (active early 18th century), formerly in the Dr. Ip Yee collection and sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 21st November 1984, lot 41 and illustrated in The Literati Mode: Chinese Scholar Paintings, Calligraphy and Desk Objects, London, 1986, pp. 80-89. See also the similarities of a woman in repose on a pavilion balustrade, in another Leng Mei painting, sold in these rooms, 23rd March 2004, lot 556.

Sotheby's. Chinese Works of Art. 17 Mar 09.New York www.sothebys.com Photo courtesy Sotheby's