Another Story of the Legendary Painting

On July 29, 2010, Madam Zhou Gongxin, the curator of National Palace Museum in Taipei announced at a press conference in Taipei that the “Scroll of Useless Master” and the “Scroll of Remaining Mountains”, two parts of a timeless painting now respectively in the collections of the National Palace Museum in Taipei and Zhejiang Museum, will be on display at the National Palace Museum in Taipei from June to September, 2011.

Cultural Dialogue published a story in its May 2010 issue about Huang Gongwang (1269-1354), arguably the greatest artist of the Yuan Dynasty who created this masterpiece. The following are more details about the legend of this legendary painting.

The “Scroll of Remaining Mountains” is now on display at the Wulin Exhibition Hall of Zhejiang Museum. The hall is in Zone E of the West Lake Culture Center in downtown Hangzhou. The made-in-Germany display cabinet is on the third floor of the museum’s Wulin department. The cabinet keeps a constant temperature and a constant humidity. All the lights are LED lights.

Fates of the Two Paintings

“Scroll of Remaining Mountains” fell into the hands of Wu Qizhen, starting its destiny of changing hands again and again for profit. In 1669, the scroll came into the possession of Wang Tingbin, a preeminent collector of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The painting was put into an album entitled “A Collection of Great Paintings of Three Dynasties”. Afterwards it changed hands again and again.

It emerged into the world again in 1938. At that time, it was just a plain ancient painting without a title, an inscription or a seal impression to indicate its past history.

In the autumn of 1938, an antique collector friend came to visit Wu Hufan (1894-1968), a great authenticator of his time, at his home in Shanghai. Wu examined the painting closely and thoroughly and realized that it was the Remaining Mountains. He proposed to buy the painting. Instantly aware that the painting might be a great treasure, the friend declined to part with the painting. After a few rounds of negotiation, Hu got the painting at the cost of a bronze treasure in his collection.

The friend revealed where he had got it. The painting was part of a collection in the hands of a family surnamed Chen in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province. Wu Hufan visited the family and found a preface written by Wang Tingbin more than 200 years ago. The document had been regarded as a scrap piece of paper.

But the preface was not the only evidence that Wu Hufan had to determine the authenticity of the scroll. As a matter of act, he had seen the “Scroll of Useless Master” before. As one of the best authenticators of his time, he had examined “Scroll of Useless Master” and remembered all the details.

The original painting was created on six pieces of rice paper as a whole. It just happened that the place where the painting broke up and became two had had a seal impression. The seal impression is in two pieces now. Wu Hufan managed to compare the two halves of the broken seal and found they came together seamlessly and perfectly. What is more, there are five places on the paper singed by the fire. The five singed scars meet each other perfectly.

It was just by luck that Wu Hufan had seen “Scroll of Useless Master” a few years before.

In 1745, a painting called “Mountain Dwelling on the Fuchun River” came into the royal collection of the Qing Dynasty. Emperor Qianlong liked it so much that he inscribed poems and stamped his personal seals on the blank of the 6-meter painting. To his big surprise, in 1746, the emperor had another “Mountain Dwelling on the Fuchun River” into his collection. This one was what is now known as “Scroll of Useless Master”. That is, this one had already gong through a fire and was incomplete and shorter than the original one. Now the emperor had a dilemma. Which one was the real and which one was the fake? He chose the first one, but he allowed the second one to stay in his collection. He liked the first one so well that he viewed the painting over a period of 48 years and inscribed more than 50 poems on it. His writings filled all the blanks. The original one stayed in the collection for about 200 years with only one inscription of the emperor. The inscription explains why the so called fake one was in the royal collection.

In 1933, some national treasures from the Palace Museum came to Shanghai. Xu Bangda had an opportunity to take a look at the two paintings under the same title. After examining and comparing the two Xu concluded that the one favored by the emperor was a fake and the one ignored by the emperor was the original masterpiece.

It turned out that Xu Bangda was a student of Wu Hufan. In 1935, Wu Hufan was appointed an official to examine some selected paintings at the Palace Museum for an international exhibition to be held in London. He was able to take a look at the authentic “Scroll of Useless Master” authenticated by his student. So when Wu Hufan happened to see “Scroll of Remaining Mountains”, it was just three years after he had examined “Scroll of Useless Master”.

In the following 10 plus years, “Scroll of Useless Master” and nearly one million other national treasures from the Palace Museum traveled across the country to Sichuan and Guizhou during World War Two. After the war, the treasures that had been placed in hiding in several places slowly gathered together in Chongqing, the country’s war-time capital and a key city in southwestern China’s Sichuan Province. At the end of 1948, they were shipped to Taiwan Province.

During all this time, “Scroll of Remaining Mountains” stayed in Wu’s collection in Shanghai. It was repaired and remounted by the collector. Shen Yimo, a great calligrapher of the time, wrote an inscription on the long lost masterpiece. Wu was quiet about his newly acquired masterpiece. It was not until the 1950s that Sha Menghai (1900-1992) first learned that Wu had the remaining part of the famous painting in his collection.

A prominent calligrapher of China and a top-ranking official of Zhejiang Cultural Relics Regulation Committee, Sha visited the collector in Shanghai several times in order to buy it back. Wu finally agreed to sell it. In 1957, Sha Wenhan, a younger brother of Sha Menghai and then governor of Zhejiang Province, approved the deal. At a price of 5,000 yuan, the masterpiece changed hands and came into the collection of Zhejiang Museum. It is now the anchor treasure of the museum.