Artist: Zheng Xie (1693-1765AD)

Dimensions: height: 146.6cm, width: 46.5cm

Ink on paper, hanging scroll

The nine orchid clusters in the painting are well arranged from top to bottom. The organization of leaves and flowers are in order with the rocks as skeleton integrating the separate orchid clusters, uniform but diverse. The orchid leaves are painted in thick ink with the help of the upright stroke and long curving vertical strokes in cursive hand. So they are not messy when large in number, and not sparse when small in number, elegant and vigorous. This shows the novelty of the painting arrangement and the elegance in tone. It is a representative work of Zheng Banqiao.

Zheng Xie (1693-1765AD), courtesy name Kerou, studio name Banqiao, was a native of Xinghua in Jiangsu Province. He obtained the jinshi degree in the imperial civil-examinations and served as county magistrate of Fan County and Wei County in Shandong Province. He was dismissed because he opened the royal barn to help poor people in times of poor harvest, and he went to Yangzhou to sell paintings for a living. He wrote poems and was good at calligraphy and painting, especially of bamboo and orchid. He was a celebrated representative of “Yangzhou Painting School”.