Travellers Among Mountains

Unlike the works in his typical style, this painting by Zhou Chen (c.1450 - 1535) employs bolder and looser brushwork, suggesting that it was made by this Suzhou artist in his late years. The sketchy strokes depict a man on horseback accompanied by his assistants, travelling on a precipitous mountain path. The artist's signature and seal can be seen (and almost hidden) on the far right. Originally painted on the gold-sprinkled paper of a folding-fan (a new format for painting at the time), the work later was mounted as an album leaf. The twin seals on the lower left corner indicate that the painting was once collected by a certain 'Shiduan,' a liberary name of a person.