Riches and Honor bring Auspiciousness

This painting features two beautiful white cockatoos with peony flowers. The artist added an interesting background effect with a wash of green and blue paint.

The Chinese title is 富貴吉祥 or "Fù guì jí xiáng". The first two characters mean "Riches and Honor". The last two mean "auspicious" or "lucky".

This phrase and these peony flowers are famous in China. The flowers themselves are sometimes called "Riches and Honor Flowers". These were the favorite flowers at the emperor's court, and concubines would often wear peonies in their hair to get the attention of the Emperor.

The artist signed it, 袁野畫, or "Yuan Ye Painted" (畫 is a character that in this context means, "painted by").

Materials used are watercolors on handmade xuan paper. The painting was then mounted with a brocade matting/border.

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About the Artist:

This was hand painted by (Yuan Ye) who lives near Guilin in Southern China. Most of his paintings feature fish which are his specialty.