Shan (1686) Li Sold at Auction Prices

Painter

(b Xinghua, Jiangsu Province, 1686; d Yangzhou, 1760). Chinese painter. He was born into a wealthy family and received a sound classical education. Wei Lingchang, his first painting instructor, taught him landscape in the style of the ORTHODOX SCHOOL, and with Wang Yuan, a female relative and painter from Gaoyou, Jiangsu Province, he studied flower-and-bird painting. At the age of 22 he passed the provincial civil service examinations and two years later he was granted an audience with the Kangxi emperor (reg 1662–1723) after having presented a poem at the latter’s 60th birthday. Chosen as an attendant at the Nan shufang (‘Southern imperial study’; a literary advisory body to the emperor), he studied the style of Huang Quan and Xu Xi from Jiang Tingxi (1669–1732), a major scholar–painter of the court.