Title: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 15, 2011, 07:51:06 pm Hello All
A string I started on commission painting turned into an important discussion about multiple copies of the same bottle picture by the same artist over a period of several years. Because others will evntually join this forul and look into the discussion archives, I think it's worthwhile to continue this discussion under a new and more accurate topic title. I wil attempt to copy the relevant emails from the commissiom painting string into this new string . Not sure if I can cut n paste all into one posting so if I fail I will just make a series of postings in the next hour. OK ... here goes This started with the observation by Bill Patrick that Richard Baey had a Cao Hui Min bottle of some very well-painted puppies that looked identical to Cao Hui Min bottle which Bill had. The only significant difference was that they were painted several years apart . Then came this comment from Pat : "I guess repeated subjects remains an issue, hundred plus years later. Just for fun, I tried to keep track once of how often a Ma Shou Xuan Bottle was repeated from sales of different collectors (one from the dream of the Red Chamber), have to find my hand and pics and scans, and gave up at over a dozen. I wonder if each original owner thought they had a unique copy!" Now I find I cannot navigate back to the Forum to attach more comments so I will post this one and then another with more contributions Cheers Peter @ HK Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 15, 2011, 08:08:25 pm Hello Again
After Bill commentef that his Cao Hui Mon Puppies bottle looked a lot like Richard's , Richard then posted this comment : "It is quite common for the artist to repeat the same subject over and over again which may upset the collector as his piece may not longer be unique. Based on the signature on your ( Bill's) photo, it is painted in 1995 whereas mine is stated as 1989." I now attach both pics , and they are obviously similar ( I wonder if they are in fact both a copy of a Western oil canvas painting . I usually find that IPB painters are not very good at painting cats and dogs realistically from memory because -as with portrait paintings - even the slightest mistake in a detailed nuance makes the protrait "wrong" for someone who actually knows the person in the portrait , although others who do not know the person intimately , including even the artist, cannot see what is "wrong". Unless one has kept cats and dogs as pets one cannot really understand what their faces look like , because to the owner their pets' faces are as intimate as their family members . The keeping of pets was very rare in China until recently and I am certian that there were no pedigree Spaniel pups in Hengshui 10 years ago ! That's why I guess these bottles of Cao Hui Min were copied from a western canvas artist's work in oils ) Cheers Peter Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 15, 2011, 08:17:42 pm Hello yet again
After Richard's comment, I posted the following as a very interesting case (especially for me and Bill) __________________ Hi Richard, Bill and All Very true ! I first came face to face with this about 2 years ago. There's a beautiful bottle which I call " Red Sun" painted by Jiang Hongliang = Song Shi. The bottle was published in Wang Ziyong's 2- part book on Ji School arstists and I was always impressed by the picture ( see attachment). Then Jiang Hongliang came to HK in early 2009 as the visiting artist of the month. I went to meet him and see his works, and there was Red Sun in all its glory, looking even more beautiful than I thought . List price USD 8,850 ! ( HK$69,000) There was no possible way I could afford to buy it, even with the 30% discount CAC usually gives me . But I decided it was worth a try if I could get the price down to less than HK$30 K so I asked the CAC sales manager to see what he could do as a special one-time case. ( You can see from this that I was still in the me -vs- artist negotiation phase of my collecting experience) Finally , after a loooong negotiation Mr Jiang explained because it was his signature piece he could not go below HK$33 K so we agreed HK$32,888 ( USD 4,200) and he gave me free of charge a beautiful 100 goldfish natural crsytal bottle that was priced at HK$18 K. Thus I bought Red Sun ( see pic) . Later Bill told me that he also had a "Red Sun" by Jiang Hongliang bought in 2002 ( see attachements) ! And of course he had paid only a small fraction of what I had paid. This of course upset me somewhat because I had assumed the version I had bought was THE one and only version, as shown in the Wang Ziying book. But when I looked very closely I could see that not only were my and Bill's versions slightly different in fine detail, but that also my version was not even the same as in the Wang Ziyong book. So 3 versions ... at least ! I therefore wrote to Jiang Hongliang and his reply was very interesting .( see attachment) Interesting story ! _____________________ The original attachments ( 4 x pics + 2 x word.docs) are re-posted below Regardless of which version , it certianly is a splendid bottle ( although something Mr Jiang once said to me leads me to believe it is in fact a copy - or at least based on - a Japanes modern painting ) Cheers Peter Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 15, 2011, 08:24:30 pm Hi Yet again
( BTW : it seems the Forum software chopped off the beginning of the pic titles in my last post about Red Sun The 1st and 2nd pics were my Red Sun , and the 3rd was Bill's Red Sun. I suspect the lighter colors of Bill's version were caused by photography conditions) After my Red Sun posting, Pat posted this comment : "Well...high horse..hobby horse.. betting horse, whatever. This is a practice that royally pisses me off (and if my wallet combined with my trust gets involved.. hm.. not a good idea). I think these people/artists/skilled craftspeople should at least make an honest attempt to track their 'copies' or repeated subjects, like lithographs indicated copy x/of xxx AND be truthful and honest about it, AND state where to got their inspiration, idea, copy from (a common practice with the old-er masters). It is NO coincidence that you see hundreds of books of pictures and paintings owned and used by these people (as evidenced by pics of just one of these 'artists'. You see the same with regular 'painters' allover Asia, who are often very good, but not necessarily original. A commisioned copy of a piece of art you like is one thing, but to think you are buying an original or unique item is another. Often it starts as a copy and it keeps on being copied, we just never know about it until we find out, by accident or by fate. Considering the prices these modern artists are starting to command, they owe us at least that. Without that it is skill and craft, NOT art. Sorry... Pat" Cheers Peter ( just one more posting to come...) Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 15, 2011, 08:48:49 pm Hi again for the last time this morning in HK,
My reply to Pat was this: "Sad but true. But there's not much we can do about it. Just live with it and be aware of the possibility that what we think is an original unique bottle may be just one of a series which the painter has painted over his lifetime. Some signed , some unsigned" In fact have several more examples of this multiple copy phenomenon that are very interesting, and I will post them in the next few days. But my classic case is certainly Jiang Hongliang's Red Sun My theory is that there are three kinds of multiple copies : a) "practice" versions of a bottle which the artist sells off unsigned to the general market just to earn some money to survive the next month b) "Improved" official / signed versions, after the artist has scored a hit with the first official / signed bottle when he finally showed it at an exhibition and maybe even won a prize ( = certificate of recognition) I guess ( just guess) it's sometimes more satisfying to repeat an earlier work and try to make it even better than to create a new work , given that a large part of the effort in painting an IPB is the skill involved c) A collector asked the artist to paint another copy of a bottle which he ( the collector) saw in a book; eg both Bill and I at different times asked one particular young Hengshui artist to paint us a copy of a beautiful bottle we both saw in CIPMA ( "Chinese Inside Painting of the Modern Age" edited by Wang Xisan , 2005 * ) In this case the bottle may either be a perfect copy, or it may be a copy "in the spirit" of the orginal with some additional flourishes at the artist's discretion . In Bill's case I think he asked this artist to paint two CIPMA-published "front face" pictures onto a new bottle, one on side A and one on side B of the new " copy" bottle . And of course there's the case that another young artist just copies the work of a Master and sells it off unsigned to earn some pocket money. It takes a very discerning eye to spot a fake copy, as was the case of my Sun Honglin's "Stormy Sea" copy - although in that case the copy was at least signed. Please understand that I am still a rookie collector and the more I learn the more I realise I have to learn, so I could be 100% wrong in what I wrote above. Corrections therefore gratefully accepted and noted ! At this point I turn this new string over to the Forum members for contributions Cheers Peter @ HK ( 09.45 saturday morning over here ) Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Pat - 查尚杰 on April 16, 2011, 07:41:05 pm Peter,
Thanks. I agree with your suggested theories and explanations but there should still be a 'trail' as to how many times this was done, and when if they want themselves to be considered as real and bona fide artists instead of very good skilled craftsmen/women. There is nothing worse than the letdown (regardless of the money involved, but also THAT ofcourse) associated withg realizing we have been 'duped', and in this case, really 'duped' in a true sense. People who do have ready access to at least some of these artists like yourself and Bill have an opportunity to try and change their behavior and get them to understand this will properly document their work, and let people know who has 'what' from 'when'. Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 16, 2011, 07:49:07 pm Hi Pat
I recall that Bill once told me he tried to encourage the Modern artists he knew personally from this practice. I don't remember his exact words but in effect it was that he was hitting his head against a brick wall. The practice is so deeply engrained that nothing Bill ( nor I , or any collector ) says can change it. As you have pointed out, this goes back far into the Middle period. Bill once told me that the reason Ma Shaoxian portraits are so much more valuable than his other bottles is that each portrait really was unique. Ian Hardy, who is an ardent collector of and expert on Zhou Leuan told me one of the reasons he so much admires ZLY is that he never painted the same picture twice. In due course I will post some very interesting stories on this matter , because it does have its lighter side :) Cheers Peter Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Pat - 查尚杰 on April 16, 2011, 07:59:31 pm Hm... agree to all 'except' MSX creating unique bottles/subjects. In CIPMA on page 31 top of page, there is one pic of which one of the "Dream of the Red Chamber0 bottles of which in my hard drive in Shanghai I have at least 12 other bottles in different shapes and sizes (all from Major auctions and 'huhum' authenticated by Moss, Hall, etc...but I will take their word for it). If he did this with a subject like these, why would it have been any different with portraits?
Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 16, 2011, 11:13:13 pm Hi Pat
Knowing zero about antiques I cannot comment. I was only repeating what Bill told me. But I did notice that at the Bloch auctions 1 and 2 the MXS portraits went for some astronmic prices, at least 5 x higher ( well over USD100K ) than the best of the normal " serial painted " MSX's , which sold at about the same prices as the best ZLY's ( about USD25K) You can check Bonhams on-line catalogues and see the prices of past auctions Cheers Peter @ HK Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Pat - 查尚杰 on April 17, 2011, 12:37:24 am Astronomical indeed. A little bit intriguing actually, I dont consider him a very good portrait painter if you see what they produce today, but maybe he was the best of the few at that time. In addition, I just have no comfort level about them being single copies. Imagine shelling out 100K USD and then later finding another same portrait bottle in a different shape bottle. Ouch ouch, ouch. Or... some people just have too much dough. Sometimes it must be nice ;D ;)
Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 17, 2011, 07:03:26 pm Hi All
MULTIPLE COPIES OF SAME BOTTLE - EXAMPLE 1 : GUO ZONG GEN ( YI FAN 一凡) If you have CIPMA, check out pp 256/257 Guo Zonggen = Yi Fan ( 一凡)* [ *Not to be confused with Shi Xingzhou = Yi Fan (艺凡)] There are 4 x "signature" bottles on page 257, two of which I have extracted and posted below CIPMA (1) and (2). Now compare these with bottle P077 in my collection. Clearly P077 (A) = CIPMA (1) and P077 (B) = CIPMA (2) I bought P077 in 3.2009 from a tourist bottle shop in Guangzhou run by a young guy who used to be an artist in Hengshui, until he decided he would never make the top grade and so he went into business. His shop sells tourist grade bottles, but once I got to know him he looked out for real artist-grade bottles for me whenever he went back to Hengshui, and P077 was one of those such bottles . I paid RMB1,000 for it - about USD 150 ( he originally wanted twice that) He assured me it was a genuine Guo Zonggen / Yi Fan , and that's how it is also signed. He had no reason to lie to me, and if he was really trying to pass off a high-grade copy of a CIPMA bottle by another artist he would have held out for a much higher price. My bottle is very well painted and is worth what I paid for it just for the artwork. So I conclude that Yi Fan has probably painted several versions of his bottles illustrated in CIPMA over the past 5 years, of which my P077 is probably just one ( maybe it was not such such a good copy, so Yi Fan sold it off more cheaply). I have seen several bottles by Yi Fan in specialist shops, but mostly they did not impress me so I did not buy them. I hazard a guess that he paints fairly prolifically and so makes up in quantity for what he lacks in quality But if you think that's an interesting story look at my next two Guo Zonggen bottles which I photographed side by side : P083 & P084 ! Two bottles, both with the same (A) side but different (B) sides. Both signed by Yi Fan, but neither particularly well painted. Coincidentally I also bought them in 3.2009 which was when I made my first trip to Hengshui , and the price was an incredible RMB150 each - YES ! - that's only USD 20 each ! You would have every right to say I had been conned, and indeed I would agree with you if I had not spotted them in the little shop/office showroom of Hou Yanbin , a senior and semi-retired Hengshui artist who was introduced to me as a trusted and good friend by Bill Patrick. Mr Hou vouched that both bottles were indeed by Guo Zonggen and I can believe him absolutely . As to why the price was so low I have no idea , unless it was that Guo Zonggen had offloaded them to Mr Hou a few years ago as low-class practice bottles, and Mr Hou had never got round to re-valuing them One day , when I go to Hengshui again, I will take all 3 bottles and get to meet Guo Zonggen personally to ask him if he really did paint all 3 bottles, and if so, how many other copies he painted Cheers Peter @ HK Title: Re: Multiple copies of the same bottle by inside painted artists Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 17, 2011, 07:55:51 pm Hi again All
MULTIPLE COPIES OF THE SAME BOTTLE - EXAMPLE 2 : NIE LEI ( = YI DING) aka "THE CAT WHO CAME BACK HOME" We have discussed Nie Le under the subject of very fine fine character bottles . It seems Nie Lei usually uses the pen name " Yi Ding" , especially when painting these character bottles . I have a series of rather unusual and quite beautiful Chinese landscape bottles that he suddenly started painting about 3 years ago, and of which I bought up most of what was available in Ms Wang's SH specialist bottle shop. From time to time when in specialist bottle shops, if I see a particularly well-painted bottle that is unsigned I offer to buy it as a what I call gift-quality , because I put these on a special shelf and sometimes if I have guests I invite them to choose one as gift from me. I now have a pretty good idea of what the shop paid for this kind of higher - grade but unsigned bottles ( probably in the range RMB 300 - 400) so regardless of the marked price for the tourists, which can be as high as RMB2,000 , I just offer a flat RMB600-700, ( USD80-100) take it or leave it. In this way I have picked up a few very nice unsigned bottles in the past few years, several of which I am now quite loathe to part with because the painting skill is really quite extraordinary. One such bottle was a very beautiful black and white persian cat theme on one side which I saw in a Guangzhou tourist bottle shop ( a different shop from the one where I bought the Yi Fan bottle) ; and owning two beautiful black and white persian cats ( pic 1) I was obviously attracted to it . The bottle was unsigned, but it was extraordinarily well-painted, and I now think it must have been copied from a Westen painting ( same as Cao Huimin's puppies) because you never see a traditional Chinese cat picture like that. ( see pics 2 & 3) A few months after I bought that bottle in early 2009 Rosanne Chan, whose company in HK publishes the ICSBS journal, came to my home . She was interested to see some good Chinese landscape theme bottles, because this is usually not a prime focus area area for those few ICSBS members who do collect modern bottles . When Rosanne was about to leave I offered to give her one my gift-quality bottles, thinking she would choose a landscape theme bottle, but then my heart sank when she said she would like my beautiful cat bottle because her son's cat had just run away so it would console him somewhat. I could not tell her that that bottle was not really intended as a gift, but anyway I thought it would be doing much more good in her home than mine ,so of course I gave it to her gladly - well.... with a few twinges of regret : bye bye beautiful pussies ... :'( Later that year I was at Ms Wang's shop in SH looking for a good bottle as a present to give my secretary for her new home and by luck Ms Wang had a really beautiful and skillfully painted 100 x goldfish bottle in a natural hair crystal. Needless to say, the bottle was not cheap ( I recall it was marked at about USD2,000) but finally Ms Wang agreed to come down to about USD1,000 , which I estimated was the fair value. I was just about to pay when I saw the exact same cat bottle again which had been hidden at the back of the shelf behind the goldfish bottle, only this time it was signed by Nie Lei ! Of course I bought it and Ms Wang was kind enough only to charged me an extra RMB1,000 = USD 150 for it . My cat had come back home ! Only one side of the bottle I gave Rosanne and my new Nei Lei bottle were the same : the picture of the cat chasing a mouse, but that was the side I loved the most . A year later when I met Nie Lei in Hengshui I showed him the photo of the signed bottle I bought in SH and he confirmed he had painted it. next time I go to Hengshui I must remember to ask him the story behind the unsigned bottle, and how it got to Guangzhou If you examine both versions of the common face of both bottles, you will see minor differences ( the same applies to the Yi Fan / CIPMA bottle copy I mentioned in my previous post ) as if the artist had done a sort of variation on a theme rather than a 100% identical copy. So........ multiple copies of the same bottle do sometimes have a happy ending ! :D :D :D Cheers Peter |