On the evening of December 12, China Guardian's "Grand View - Night of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Treasures : Ancient Times" special session began filming. Among them, Zhou Zhimian's "Best of Flowers" "Hundred Flowers Picture Scroll" started at 88 million yuan, dropped the hammer for 129 million yuan, and sold for 148.35 million yuan with a commission, creating a record for the highest price of Zhou Zhimian's works at auction.
Hundred Flowers Scroll
Zhou Zhimian created many "Hundred Flowers Picture Scrolls" in his lifetime, which are treasured in public institutions such as the Palace Museum, hebei provincial museum, and Shanghai museum. In terms of size alone, this "Hundred Flowers Picture Scroll" can be called the longest and most magnificent in his works of the same theme. The full volume is 32 cm long and 1717 cm long, depicting nearly 80 kinds of folded flowers such as orchids, plum blossoms, Xinyi, peach blossoms, pear blossoms, magnolias, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, lotuses, daffodils, peonies, ganoderma lucidum, and moon seasons. There is absolutely no similarity in the mood, color and charm of each flower. Even if the same flower (such as chrysanthemum) is depicted, the author uses different expression methods (such as different colors, different postures, etc.) to make it colorful and charming.
Part of the Hundred Flowers Scroll
Zhou Zhimian was active in the Years of Ming Jiajing and Wanli, and was known as one of the "Three Houses of Wumen Flowers". There are very few biographical materials on his life, and the classic commentary on his painting art comes from Ming Wang Shizhen's "Continuation of Yizhou", in Wang Shizhen's view, the achievements of flowers in the Ming Dynasty are most important to Wumen, and Wumen since Shen Zhou, and Chen Chun, Lu Zhi, zhou zhimian as representatives, Chen Chun is long in freehand, the so-called "wonderful" is not "true", Lu Zhi is good at writing shapes, but "true" and not "wonderful", but Zhou Zhiguan can just combine the strengths of both, and have both form gods, reaching the state of both "true" and "wonderful".
It is understood that the Palace Museum now also has a "Hundred Flowers Picture Scroll" of Zhou Zhimian, which is 7 meters long and is a work of ink pen hook flower dot leaf technique, with zhang Fengyi, Wang Xiaodeng, Chen Jiru, Wen Zhenmeng and other 9 Ming Dynasty literati inscriptions, and 30 inscription poems by the Qianlong Emperor. These two flower works of Zhou Zhiguan, one is the largest in size and flower scale, and the other is the most inscripted, which can be called "double beauty".
Source Beijing Daily Client | Reporter Wang Guangyan
Edited by Wang Guangyan
Process Editor Wu Yue