Court lady with a lotus flower in a scholar's garden

This exquisite and refined Chinese pictorial work, masterfully executed on a delicate natural silk support that provides an organic texture and a patina of subtle elegance, unfolds a sumptuous courtly scene starring an elegant lady or měirén of classical inspiration holding a lotus flower—the supreme symbol of purity and spiritual nobility—, flanked by a monumental scholar's rock with eroded forms (Taihu), subtle bamboo shoots, and a vermilion railing in an idyllic garden of contemplation, all crowned by a valuable ink calligraphy inscription and a stamped red wax seal that reveal with absolute precision the authorship and creation context of the piece by reading in its columns from right to left «Jiǎzǐ zhòngxià zhī yuè» («In the mid-summer month of the Jiazi year»), «Shānyīn Zhèng Qìng» («By Zheng Qing of Shanyin», a historical locality in present-day Zhejiang province famous for its great literati) and «Huà yú Yángzhōu Shuǐhuì Gé» («Painted at the Shuihui Pavilion in Yangzhou», one of the most important neuralgic centers in the history of Chinese art and pictorial trade); a true jewel of Oriental art that connects with the deep renewal of classical aesthetic principles inspired by the Tang and Ming dynasties, whose artist, Zheng Qing, perpetuates the technical virtuosity of the calligraphic stroke and the refined palette of the traditional masters of the Yangzhou and Shanghai schools of the 20th century, awakening a superlative interest in international collecting and in major global auction houses due to the impeccable conservation of its silky surface and its clear epigraphic attribution, with institutional parallels and masterpieces of the painting of ladies and figures on silk from this exact academic tradition found in the collections of the world's most prestigious museums such as the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Shanghai Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, or the Musée Guimet in Paris.