Artist: Xugu (1832-1896)
Date: Qing (1644-1911)
Material: Ink and colour on silk
Xugu (1823-1896) was a Buddhist monk whose original name was Zhu Huairen. A native of She county in Anhui, he later moved to Yangzhou in Jiangsu, and took his residence in Shanghai in his later years. In his early years, Xugu studied jiehua (architecture painting) and later he became famous for paintings of flowers, fruits, birds, fish and landscape. This scroll depicts flowers of the four sections, executed with crisp and vigorous brushwork, rendered in the mogu ("boneless" or without contour) technique using delicate colors, achieving a luminous richness.
