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1510904

A Chinese scroll painting, signed Huang Zhouyuan with dedication to Na Wufu, 1930s.

Estimate
4 000 - 6 000 SEK
357 - 536 EUR
363 - 544 USD
Hammer price
4 000 SEK
Purchasing info
For condition report contact specialist
Cecilia Nordström
Stockholm
Cecilia Nordström
Senior specialist Asian Ceramics and Works of Art, European Ceramics and Glass
+46 (0)739 40 08 02
A Chinese scroll painting, signed Huang Zhouyuan with dedication to Na Wufu, 1930s.

Ink and colour on paper. Calligraphy and seal in red. Two men in a conversation in a mountain landscape, five bats hovering above them. Measure motif 35.5x95 cm. Measure hanging 50.5x226 cm. Can be rolled up.

Wear.

Provenance

The Collection of Erik Nordström (1884-1971)
Erik Nordström was commissioned after a recommendation by Swedish minister Gustav Oscar Wallenberg, the Envoyé of Japan and China, as Post General in Shanghai at the Royal Chinese General Post Office in 1910. The aim was to help facilitate its work throughout China. He was positioned in several of the Chinese provinces (he often chose the northern provinces due to their resemblance to the northern Sweden where he stems from) over his 35 years in the postal service.
Gustav Oscar Wallenberg who became a close and dear friend of Erik Nordström, was a keen collector of Chinese ceramics and introduced him to the art of collecting by defining age, quality and heritage as they visited the antique shops of Beijing. The vast collection of Eric Nordström contains a variety of objects of which many were acquired for the purpose of everyday use, hence the wear to many of the objects.
During his time in China he encountered and befriended many of the Swedish society who both worked and lived as well as passed through China at the time, i.e. Johan Gunnar Andersson and wife, Sven Hedin, Carl Bonde, Sten Thiel in the company of Nils von Dardel and his then fiancé Nita Wallenberg, to name only a few.
Erik Nordström was a keen sportsman and always liked a challenge whether it be hunting, shooting or tennis. He retired in China in 1945 and spent his last years in Qingdao before his return to Sweden in 1948.
By the time he left China in 1948 he and his family had experienced the Chinese revolution, World War I and the Japanese invasion and World War II.

For other lots from this collection sold in these rooms with Bukowskis. See Sale 629 lot 641-643. And also the mayor part of the collection, sale 580, 160 lots.

More information

“If you say the words for ‘red bat’ (hong fu) out loud it sounds similar to the combination of words that imply ‘vast good fortune;’ which explains why so many bats in Chinese art are red in color,” continues Stuart, “Red bats in a sky denote ‘good fortune as vast as the sky.’ Shown upside down, the bat works into a visual pun meaning ‘blessings have arrived,’ and an image of bats amongst clouds is not far from the sound of ‘blessings and fortune.’ The word games go on and on!”