| dc.description.abstract | Duan Fang (1861-1911) was a government official, notable collector in the late Qing dynasty. His collection includes bronzes, steles, rubbings, calligraphies,
paintings, jades, and pottery. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Duan Fang was politically and diplomatically active and gained broad recognition in China, Japan and the West. He was one of the most attractive collectors for foreign scholars and collectors in his time.
Up to now, Duan Fang’s painting collection is not thoroughly studied. Most papers related to Duan Fang’s collection focused more on the bronzes, steles and their
rubbings, while only limited attention has been paid to his painting collection. The collector also left an unpublished catalogue Ren-yin Xiao-Xia Lu which is essential to our understanding to his painting collection. The primary questions of this thesis are: How Duan Fang established his painting collection? And, what are the features of Duan Fang’s collection?
The first chapter explores the career and the main collecting activities of Duan Fang. Duan Fang enjoyed his early days before 1901 in Peking and had close
association with the collector-connoisseurs and scholars there. After 1901, he held the post of the governor of Hubei province. With the help of scholars and officials close to him, Duan Fang assembled a large number of paintings and calligraphies during 1901 to 1911. The works he collected were partially from the former collectors of Tongzhi (1861-1874) and Guangxu (1875-1908) reigns, and partially from the Qing imperial collection.
In the Second chapter three publications related to Duan Fang’s painting collection in the early twentieth century China and Japan are discussed. The first is the unpublished catalogue Ren yin xiao xia Lu which was edited by the Qing scholar Miu Quan-sun (1844-1919) during the period 1907 to 1909. By examining the chapters and content in Ren yin xiao xia Lu, we comprehend that it was edited with a traditional manner. And at least 344 pieces of calligraphies and paintings in Duan Fang’s collection were recorded. In addition to the literal content in traditional catalogue, some pictorial records of Duan Fang’s painting collection in the other two journals Specimens of Old Chinese Pictorial Art (Zhong guo ming hua ji) and Kokka are analyzed.
The third and fourth chapters focus on several paintings attributed to the Six dynasty (220-589) to the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) in Ren-yin Xiao-Xia Lu. The discussions cover the editors’ comments on works, related reports and purchasing details on Duan Fang’s collection. The result show that questionable paintings and masterpieces were all recorded in the catalogue. In summary, Duan Fang’s painting
collection is far more complicate then we used to acknowledge. | en_US |