Medieval Chinese Painting “Nomads” and the Problem of its Attribution

Abstract

The objective of this article is to check the reliability of the attribution of the medieval Chinese painting “Fanqi tu” (“Nomads”) to Hu Huan (Hu Huai), an artist living at the end of 9th – beginning of the 10th century. In order to achieve this objective, two tasks must be undertaken: 1) compare “Fanqi tu” with other paintings by Hu Huan, and 2) widen the range of comparisons by including paintings of the renwu genre of other artists close to Hu Huan’s paintings. Some of the compared pictures do have reliable chronological attributions that help to determine the dates of the others, including “Fanqi tu”. This study used hair-styles of saddle-horses’ tails as the ethno-chronological marker which has never been used before by anyone in this way. The analysis showed that neither “Fanqi tu”, nor “Zhuosetu” (another picture attributed to Hu Huan) can be among his works. They were painted much later. The “Zhuosetu” scroll reflects contacts of Qidan (Khidan) and Jurchen peoples and belongs to 1110–1140 AD. As the ethno-chronological marker of Qidan (Khidan) attribution of the personages depicted, this study picked out the lacing of the tails of their saddle-horses in the middle. The tails of saddle-horses of Jurchen (Jin) and Southern Song peoples were the same: a tight knot with two hanging locks. Therefore, this was a chronological sign, not an ethno-cultural one. It would seem that long loose flowing tails were primarily used by Mongolian-time saddle-horses. Therefore, the “Fanqi tu” painting must be dated to the middle – second half of 13th century (from the collapse of the Jin Empire in 1234 to the flourishing of Zhao Mengfu’s paintings).