Photos & details of a Chinese scroll painting and it's box

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Photos & details of a Chinese scroll painting and it's box (2/19/06)

A Chinese scroll

I got this scroll at an antique shop for $13.50. It was with some other ones that looked mass produced but details on this one made me think it was different and it was nice so I bought it. The others had lots of neon colors and were made from plastic while this one was handmade. The box it was in was even handmade. I found out later that retirees in China make these boxes and they are quite common.

On the box top there is a label and someone put the silver label on top of some white paper before putting those two on the box. They are actually layered, rather than printed in different colors on one piece of paper:

The scroll's label

Here is the text of the label:

The box text

Next is the box itself. This is inside:

Inside of the box

It is hard to see but each "side" of the box is a seperate piece of cardboard which has been bound together by the outer wrapping, the brown paper. I get the feeling it was covered in paste and then wrapped around the cardboard.

Lets have a look at the scroll itself:

A full view of a Chinese scroll A full view of the backside of a Chinese scroll

There is a wooden dowel the scroll wraps around and is then unwrapped to display. More detail is present, for instance on the backside where these strips were placed on the bottom:

At the bottom of the back of the scroll

I think they add weight and structure to it, keeping the bottom from folding or otherwise getting out of sort. Who thinks to do that? Here is the top of the backside:

At the top of the back of the scroll

At the top string has been strung across the width so it can be hung up. Hanging down from that is the same string that is used to tie it together when it is put in the box.

The white paper is attached to the leader on some sort of paper. I've since learned it is many layers of paper and silk pasted together. Just under the top dowel the scroll label can be seen, which is another piece of paper that has been pasted on. Here is a closeup:

The scroll's text

Now for the front side. Here it is again, with a closeup of the painting too:

A full view of a Chinese scroll The full painting on the scroll

Before we get to the painting, just look at the white paper. It doesn't look like much, does it? Consider that it is actually 4 pieces:

The intersection of the paper on the scroll

Oh, and the paper itself? It isn't quite as boring as it looks in the photos. The top and bottom parts have this repeating pattern:

The pattern on the scroll's paper

The painting itself is amazing. I've no idea of how it was made. Brush lines aren't visible. Here it is again along with a closeup of two sections:

The full picture on the scroll A closeup of part of the picture A closeup of another part of the picture

I especially like how the artist used different colors and shades to bring out the details of the work. And then, as if just to play around a bit, they used a little red for that one tree and part of their signature. Here is a closeup of the main text:

The signature and description on the scroll

I asked someone and it is appartently written using traditional Mandarin Chinese. The right column reads: "The trees blow in the wind with the smell of pine in the air as the stream trickles by." In the left column we find the date: fall of the year Jia-zi, which is the first year of the 60 year Chinese calendar. Which 60 year cycle isn't evident though! It could be 1984, 1924, 1864, etc. I've been told the darkness of the painting is due to ageing of the glue and can indicate it is an older painting.

Below the date we find the painter's name, Xu Jianming. I can't find anything on that person on the Internet. The red mark after the name is the painter's seal, or "chop". It is actually their name again, but this is the official "signature", if you will, in China. Apparently whoever owns the scroll will then add their own chop to show ownership, and some of the paintings end up with a lot of them.