Rare!!! Chinese Ming Dynasty Scroll Ink Painting After Tang Yin Poem Tao Gu

Description

** This is a rare piece!** This is a magnificent Chinese Ming Dynasty( this artwork and age certainly appears to be Ming)scroll ink painting after Tan Yin's Poem "Tao Gu". Based on the period, the style, the subject, and the brush strokes this work of art is attributed to either one of the following famed Chinese painters Tang Yin, Leng Mei or Ma Lin, etc. because one part of the seal is partially illegible. This is a beautiful authentic period piece, which is a great piece of history to own and frame to add to your existing collection or start a new one.The scroll measures 33 inches in height and 11.5 inches in width. The image measures 29.5 inches in height and 9 inches in width. Please examine the photos carefully. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
Tao Gu Presenting a Lyric to Qin Ruolan (陶穀贈詞)
In the early Song (960-1279), Tao Gu (陶穀, 903-970) served an envoy to the small Five Dynasties kingdom of the Southern Tang. Tao was condescending in the face of the Southern Tang ruler Li Houzhu. The Southern Tang officials, angered by his rudeness, came up with a plot; they sent the court courtesan Qin Ruolan (秦蒻蘭) in the guise of the Station Officer's daughter to seduce Tao. Alone in her company and unsuspecting of her true identity, Tao Gu was overcome by her beauty and forgot his official position, indiscreetly writing a poem for her. The next day, the Southern Tang ruler gave a banquet for Tao Gu. At the banquet, Tao again assumed an air of unbending dignity and unapproachability. The ruler then summoned Qin Ruolan to perform a song, which was the poem that Tao had written for her the day before. Tao Gu was thereupon greatly humiliated and he lost his composure. The painting here illustrates this story.
When someone tells you to look at a painting, I'll bet you think of an image on the wall. But in Chinese art, the tradition of scroll painting presents a painting in a different way. The image is painted on a roll of paper or silk and unrolled for viewing.
There are two types of scroll painting: handscrolls and hanging, or landscape, scrolls. Neither stays on the wall all the time. The scrolls are lightweight and mobile, and meant to be enjoyed for a while and then put away, to be brought back out and viewed on special occasions.
Each scroll is mounted on a wooden roller with a protective silk wrapper around the outside, and stored in a special wooden box. When you want to view one, you unroll it by hand while it's flat on a table. The image, which often involves a scene or story, unfolds before you. Think of it as an illustrated book that tells a story as the pages are turned.
Unlike hand scrolls, hanging or landscape scrolls tend to be vertical. They are unrolled, can be hung on a wall and viewed all at one time. But they are still lightweight, portable and on the same silk or paper as handscrolls.
Chinese scroll painting is a very old art. The earliest known works were done thousands of years ago, and the idea might have originated with painted banners meant to hang in tombs. Artists at first used inks. Then the practice of wash painting, meaning brush or watercolor painting, was invented during the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) and further developed during the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279). Artists used fine brushes and water-based inks or paints, made by hand from pigments (dry materials like minerals that provide color) that the artists ground themselves.
Common themes on scroll paintings tend to be landscapes (including natural features like mountains and cities), people, and birds in floral settings.