Leaf from Landscape Album

First trained as a silversmith, Cai Jia later became a professional painter, calligrapher, and poet. Although often linked with Yangzhou's eccentric group, Cai's painting represents a rather lyrical interpretation of the Qing orthodox lineage, especially that of Wang Hui (1632-1717). The present set of twelve paintings depicting scholars or fishermen in landscapes are each clearly composed, carefully brushed renderings. An inscription on the last page states the work was produced in the fourth month of 1735 at a grass hut on the river, most probably a studio name.

Cai includes four ink studies in this album; each appropriately in the style of a Song or Yuan master. His remaining leaves however conform closely to Qing orthodoxy, and it is in these lucid disciplined renderings that Cai Jia's importance as an exponent of the archaic blue-green landscape style is clearly evident.