Orchid

This painting features two hard-to-translate Chinese poems about orchids and a beautiful orchid flower. This is one of the most traditional forms of ancient Chinese art. This is what art looked like in the time before watercolor.

About the Artist

This was painted by (Wang Qi) from a village near Chengdu in the Sichuan Province of southern China.

About the Art

This was painted on Chinese xuan paper (often incorrectly called "rice paper"). The artist used watercolors throughout. This artist has a unique style of backing his titles and inscription characters with a patch of brown watercolor.

After buying this from the artist in Sichuan, I rolled it up in a tube, and put it in my backpack. I then took it 1200 miles via overnight passenger train to our workshop in Beijing. At the workshop, it was laminated to more sheets of xuan paper and a silk border was added by our skilled craftsmen. See more about mounting Asian art