Hua ji ("An Album of Paintings").

Beijing: Rongbaozhai,, 1952. An exquisite album showcasing the work of the "Chinese Picasso" First edition, first printing, of this attractive collection of paintings by Qi Baishi, one of the "four great masters of 20th-century Chinese painting" (Perkins, p. 404). Published by a leading Chinese fine arts press, it displays Qi's ability to capture subjects from the natural world with unmatched fluidity and energy. Qi (1864-1957) remains one of the most sought-after artists of the last century, famous for his skilled depiction of landscapes, insects, flowers, and birds, variably rendered in either broad strokes or precise lines. The present album selects 22 of his works that, in the opinion of the editors, "demonstrate Qi's ability to capture traditional subjects in ink to evoke brightness, clarity, freshness, and happiness" (preface). This is an attractive example of the fine printing for which the Rongbaozhai press remains famous. Founded in 1894 on the legacy of a studio dating back to 1672, Rongbaozhai's publications are typified by decorative silk brocade bindings and volumes bound as concertinas or in the traditional Chinese xianzhuang style. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Rongbaozhai became a state-controlled publishing enterprise and continued to specialize in collectable art publications issued in small print-runs for a select political and cultural elite. Its works were also exported abroad for sale to connoisseurs, book collectors and institutions. Today, Qi's original artwork commands extraordinary auction prices. In 2017, a set of 12 of his landscape paintings sold for $141 million in Beijing, setting a new record for Chinese artwork. Quarto, concertina-style (315 x 213 mm). Original decorative silk brocade boards, front cover with calligraphic title label speckled with gold, cream endpapers. With 22 colour woodblock illustrations, Chinese preface printed in green with vignette of Qi Baishi at work. 1956 birthday inscription in blue ink on front free endpaper. Brocade clean and bright, album lightly bumped at lower-right corner, trace of soiling to edges. A near-fine copy. Dorothy Perkins, Encyclopedia of China: History and Culture, 2013.