Page 178 - Christie's Fine Chiense Works of Art November 2018 London

FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION
*156
QI BAISHI (1863-1957)
Chicks
Hanging scroll, ink and colour on paper
37º x 14 in. (94.7 x 35.6 cm.)
Inscribed and signed with one seal of the artist
Dated wuzi year (1948)
£40,000-60,000 $53,000-79,000
€45,000-67,000

This painting was executed at the apex of Qi Baishi’s career, dated to 1948 in
the last decade of his life. Qi has used bold variation in ink and colour washes
to convey the volume of the chicks’ plumage. Their fufy bodies are arranged
in three discrete groups across the painting surface. Each group is positioned
above the other, repeatedly redefning the viewer’s perception of pictorial
space.
While these colourful young birds appear wholly unthreatening to the
painting’s human viewers, their attention is unilaterally focused on an
earthworm in the lower register, rendered in a terse calligraphic line of
pinkish brown pigment. This invertebrate is surrounded by a group of hungry
chicks, whose sharp beaks all point toward their prospective prey. Through
the subtle insertion of this single feature, Qi transforms these innocuous
avian infants into towering predators, subverting the viewer’s perception
once again.
This lot comes from the same collection as a group of paintings sold at
Christie’s King Street, 7 November 2017 (lots 350-354).

齊白石 雛雞 設色紙本 立軸 一九四八年作

題識：借山唫館主者白石八十八歲戊子（1948年）畫。
鈴印：白石
來源: 歐洲私人珍藏
註：源自同一珍藏的五幅畫作於2017年11月7日倫敦佳士得
拍賣（350-354號拍品）。

176 Other fees apply in addition to the hammer price – see Section D of our Conditions of Sale at the back of this Catalogue