Title: Who is Zhong Yuan 仲 元 ? Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 08, 2012, 03:47:39 am Hi All
Now here's another puzzle...... In 3.2009 I went to Hengshui for the 1st time in 3.2009 and visited Wang Guan Yu's home One of the bottles he sold me was a landscape painted by "Zhong Yuan 仲 元 " but the only such artist I can trace who had that pen-name is [ Wei Jianmin 魏 剑 民 = Zhong Yuan 仲元 @ NEW LOOK] and who is very early Modern era Although the artistry of the "Zhong Yuan" bottle I bought from Wang Guanyu is old-ish , I cannot really place it to the very early modern era when Wei Jian Min was painting, and the price I paid WGY was only RMB1,300 in 3.2009 Any suggestions? Cheers Peter PS : My early ventures into MIPB collecting has left me with a handful of bottles with "wierd" heritage , just like this one. If I had been wiser at the time I would have asked a lot more questions , but at the time I was just gobbling up every "good' Chinese landscape bottle in sight , not to mention a bunch of IPBs that I would never now buy based purely on my strictly preferred Chinese landscape collecting theme ( = some very good pedigree bird theme bottles coming up for sale soon by private sale to Forum members on right of first refusal before I offer more widely) . As I now re-catalogue all my bottles I am looking into the provenance of every one, and thank G_D ( to quote Joey) that the vast majority of my collection were bought direct from the artists so I can personally with my hand on my heart attest to the provenance of every one ("Scouts' Honour") if ever I offer any of them for sale. Which all comes back to the golden word "PROVENANCE " Title: Re: Who is Zhong Yuan 仲 元 ? Post by: Steven on April 08, 2012, 10:36:28 am Hi Peter,
The info I found:"魏剑泉——笔名仲元,1962年生于河北省获鹿县。1979年师从王习三大师和刘和平学习古月轩绘制技术,1984年开始学习内画。" Zhong Yuan's real name is 魏剑泉( Wei jianQuan) was born in 1962 in hebei, started to learn old moon pavilion painting from Wang xisan and Liu heping in 1979, and started to learn inside paint from 1984. which should match the your oldish style ;D Steven Title: Re: Who is Zhong Yuan 仲 元 ? Post by: Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司 on April 08, 2012, 04:09:33 pm Dear Peter,
In a perfect world, there would be no forgery of art works, and everyone would be wonderfully talented etc. In the real world, my friend, you are correct - provenance is extremely important. And it sounds like you have the best, directly from the artists! Very well done. Happy Easter/Happy Passover/ Joyous Festivus ( for the rest o'yus) Joey Title: Re: Who is Zhong Yuan 仲 元 ? Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on April 13, 2012, 07:58:45 pm Hi All
Last night Jill Guo Jie and her husband Li Hui came to my home in HK for hotpot I raised the question of " Who is Zhong Yuan?" There are 3 contenders : 1. Wei Jianmin 魏 剑 民 as quoted by J. H. Leung 2. Wei Jianmin 魏 建 民 , quoted as a IV generation student of WXS ( my DB in error writes III gen. and I have now corrected this . IV gen = 1979 - 1988 but apparently he "did not complete his training") 3. Wei Jianquan 魏 剑 泉 as quoted by Steven below References 1 and 3 quote a birth date 1962. Li Hui thinks that J. H. Leung ( or whoever compiled the WXS Generation Table which you can find my DB) made a mistake when he wrote "Jian" as 剑 / 建 , and that these are all the same person in fact Anyway, hopefully I can find out from Wang Guanyu next weekend when I visit Hengshui This all goes to show that one must be VERY careful regarding the correct Chinese character because the same pinyin can be written many different ways in Chinese characters. It also goes to show that even experts sometimes get spellings wrong Cheers Peter Title: Re: Who is Zhong Yuan 仲 元 ? Post by: Steven on May 28, 2014, 12:14:22 am Hi Peter,
Have you figured out who is Zhongyuan? I have a bottle, signed Wei Jianmin 魏 建 民 one side , and zhong yuan the other side, dated 1985. I believe reference 1 ,2 and 3 are all correct info, hope you can correct me if I am wrong. Steven Title: Re: Who is Zhong Yuan 仲 元 ? Post by: Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司 on May 28, 2014, 06:33:15 am Steven,
That is a very appealing subject, for those who collect Human Figure subject SBs. Joey Title: Re: Who is Zhong Yuan 仲 元 ? Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on May 28, 2014, 10:51:12 am Hi Steven
After checking back in my DB I recall I concluded that Wei Jianmin and Zhong Yuan are the same person. But Wei Jianmin has been variously spelt in Chinese as 魏 建 民 and 魏 俭 民 (and also Wei Jianquan 魏 俭 泉) All very complicated But that's the kind of puzzle my DB can maybe help to solve, because every input from every source goes into it.... :D Cheers Peter |