XU CONGLONG (c.1700)
Two Luohan, Kangxi, painted between 1706 and 1712
Ink and colour on paper, depicting two luohan in a mountainous landscape framed by rocks to the side and below, dressed in dramatic red and white robes, with two seals of the artist reading bing wu huishi qian guan and Xu Conglong yin, one by Jin Shiyang, commissioner of the work reading Zheng shi si jinshiyang tie shan shi juanzi zhi, one of the Lushan temple Lushan qi xian si yongyuan gongfeng and two collectors seals, Jing pi xuan wan pin and wan cheng zhen tong jiaozheng, partially mounted, framed and glazed.
281cm (110 5/8in) high x 128cm (50 1/4in) wide.
Footnotes:
許從龍 羅漢圖 設色紙本 1706-1712年

鈐印：廬山棲賢寺永遠供奉、丙戊會試謙官、許從龍印、徑甓軒貦品、萬承鎮同校正、政使司金世揚銕山氏捐资製

Provenance: the celebrated American portrait painter Dewitt McClellan Lockman (1870-1957), acquired from his estate in the 1980s, by repute

Lockman had travelled to Europe in 1892 and again in 1902, and served at the Office of Naval Intelligence from 1917 to 1918. He was a member of numerous artistic societies, and his works are owned by institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

來源：據傳原是美國肖像畫家Dewitt McClellan Lockman (1870-1957)舊藏，由現藏家在1980年代從其府邸處獲得。

Lockman曾在1891-2年和1901-2年兩次前往歐洲，並於1917-1918年間在海軍情報辦公室任職。他曾是眾多藝術團體的成員，其作品被美國紐約大都會博物館在內的眾多機構收藏。

The long and illustrious tradition of Luohan, or Arhat, painting in China can be traced even before its Imperial sponsorship by the Song Emperor Taizong. Through successive dynasties, pre-eminent artists including Liu Songnian, Zhao Mengfu, Cheng Hongshou and Shi Tao, have been drawn to this subject matter. Luohan are generally presented in groups of sixteen, eighteen or five hundred and are often depicted as monks or ascetics. Whilst no Buddhist text gives the names of all five hundred luohan, the Lotus Sutra mentions five hundred disciples of the Buddha who, it appears, form the basis of the 'five hundred luohan' tradition. Their exaggerated features and sheer multiplicity demonstrate creative freedom and experimentation, making them the chosen subject matter for some of the very finest Chinese figurative and Buddhist art.

In the works of Xu Conglong we arguably find the apotheosis of the genre. Both in scale and expressive character, his works are unsurpassed. His two hundred monumental paintings together depict five hundred Arhats. These were completed in the six-year period between 1706 and 1712 by the sole hand of the Kangxi Court artist. Each work measures an impressive 274 x 125cm meaning the five hundred luohan of Xu Conglong together occupy a combined surface area of 688 square metres.

Previous depictions of the five hundred luohan in Chinese art appeared in three forms. First, across multiple leaves in a small-scale album, presented together in a continuous horizontal format to be gradually revealed section by section. Second, in the form of a hand scroll. Third, in the form of mural paintings such as the five hundred luohans in Foguang temple in Wutaishan painted in the Xuande period, 1430, and repainted during the reign of Hongzhi.

The arrangement of Xu Conglong's large-scale vertical paintings, combined to depict the five hundred luohans, builds on these three existing formats to create something unique, completely unprecedented and never again repeated in the history of Chinese painting. It is remarkable that the complete set is the product of one individual artist, thereby embodying one man's artistic vision from conception through to execution. The works' designation as a Chinese National Treasure of the First Grade attests further to their status as the foremost masterpiece of Chinese Buddhist painting of the Qing period. The influence of the works beyond China is clear in the set of one hundred paintings of the five hundred luohan completed by the Japanese artist Kano Kazunobu (1816-1863) which was commissioned by the Zojo-ji Temple and painted between 1854 and 1863.

Considering the importance of Xu in the history of Classical Chinese Painting, relatively little is known about his life. However, it has been established that he was a native of Jiashan in Zhejiang Province and lived to the age of 80. In 1706 he took the Kangxi Bingxu examinations and was recommended to serve in the Nanxun Palace. He served in the Imperial Court, with access to the Imperial painting collection where he also gained access to Western painting techniques and to Yuan dynasty paintings, both of which influenced his output. Two of his works in the Imperial collection are preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, one of a goatherd with three goats and a hand scroll depicting the five hundred luohan. Another work depicting luohan, Longgong fu zhai tu, is in the Nanjing Museum. Paintings from the set of which the present lot is part were lent to the Palace Museum, Beijing, for a temporary exhibition in the East Hall of the Forbidden City in 1991.

The two hundred luohan paintings were originally commissioned by the provincial governor Jin Shiyang. On its completion the set was exhibited in Youqing Temple to critical and popular acclaim with tens of thousands of visitors attending. In April 1712 it was moved to Youmin Temple for the Bathing Buddha Festival, after which it was transported to Qixian Temple, on mount Lushan in Jiangxi Province.

The value of the work is further underpinned by the tumultuous history of its survival. From the outset it was subject to numerous threats. There was a series of fires at the Qixian Temple before it was finally destroyed by soldiers in 1850.

Of the original 200 paintings comprising the set, almost half have been lost, their locations unknown, and all known remaining works are currently housed within institutions: 112 in the Lushan Museum and one in the Nanjing Museum. None of the missing works have been recovered and the discovery of the present work is unprecedented in the modern history of Chinese Buddhist art. Whilst many of the surviving works are in very poor condition with large sections of the surface missing, the present work has been preserved almost entirely intact.

In 1918 when the scholar official Kang Youwei (1858-1927) visited the paintings he recorded only 120 remaining. He added his seals to each of these and wrote an inscription to one painting. The present work does not contain either of the two seals of Kang Youwei found on the known extant works (維新百日出亡十六年三周大地遊徧四洲經三十一國行六十萬里 and 康有為印). This provides a strong indication that the work has been separated from the collection of paintings prior to 1918.

In total the painting contains six seals. Two are seals of the artist to the upper left (丙戊會試謙官、許從龍印) and a large seal of the provincial governor Jin Shiyang, who commissioned the works, in the centre of the painting (政使司金世揚銕山氏捐资製). The seal 廬山棲賢寺永遠供奉 to the centre left and two collector's seals 徑甓軒貦品 and 萬承鎮同校正 respectively in the bottom left and right corners, all date to the point at which the painting was first created.

Stylistically, these works by Xu Conglong are situated centrally within the canon of luohan painting with many of the compositions drawing directly on the album of luohan paintings of Shi Tao, who himself drew inspiration from Wu Bin and Ding Yunpeng. The works are innovative in the way that they reflect human feeling not only in the expressions of the luohan but in the animals, the brushwork and the composition of the landscape elements of the paintings. This draws, to some extent, on the conventions of Yuan dynasty painting. However, transformed into such monumental scale and scope, the works evoke awe and wonder in the viewer fitting for the religious subject matter.
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Examined within frame and glaze

Some tears, the largest approx. 25cm long; extensive creasing across the width and length of the painting; some fading of colour; some other minor losses to the extremities; some staining; general surface wear, as can be seen in the photograph.