Lofty Branches Like Phoenix Wings

Inscription: Artist’s inscription and signature (1 column in clerical script followed by 14 columns in semi-cursive script)

I was thirty-one,
And you, forty-nine,
When in Beijing we met.
Despite the gap in age,
Our souls connect
Through hearty jokes and chats.
Forthright as a man,
I disdained not this not that.
A traveler seasoned,
You sang as roared a big cat.
Together we gulped wine
And ripped at shanks of lamb.
In Tianrui we got closer still
As yours became a resounding name.
Darkness soon descended
And bandits were at our doors.
I headed for the deserts
Where Buddha I'd adore.
You, a commander
By whom all were awed,
Grasping my hands in yours,
Urged me my plans to redraw.
On rainy stormy nights,
I dreamt of the south of old.
Four years since we parted,
I visited the tragic Huayuankou.
With Yu's work ruined,
Would rain bring cheer, like before?
Taiwan has been my home
For ten years that trickled like sand.
Dazed and devastated,
I sigh over our lost motherland.
Now I am sixty-two,
With grey hair and frail as a willow.
You have reached eighty,
Like cypresses and pines a sturdy fellow.
The oceans between us
Bar my toasting you in person.
With this painting of Mount Taigu,
May I loftiness and elegance summon
To keep you, a man of virtue,
As you in your hundredth birthday welcome.
May you live long to see
Our land flushed clean by heavenly torrents.

In the fifth month of the gengzi year (1960) painted in Brazil and sent to Taiwan to congratulate Youqin (Zhao Shouyu 趙守鈺, 1881–1960), my senior, on his eightieth birthday. With warmest regards from Daqian, Zhang Yuan, your junior.

[Translation by Tina Liem in The Rustic Studio Collection of Chinese Paintings 陋室齋藏中國繪畫, Hong Kong: Rustic Studio Collection, 2019, cat. no. 20, p. 53. Modified.]

我年三十一，君年四十九。
相逢燕市中，許我忘年友。
談笑見天倪，傾吐肺肝剖。
爰也落落人，曾不鄙庸醜。
君乃風麈健，浩歌獅子吼。
豪飲吸百川，雙手擘羊肘。
接席天瑞居，驚坐每濡貧。
倏忽宇宙昏，鯨鱷恣窮寇。
我行度流沙，禮佛涅水右。
握手海之頭，輒問能留否。
君時持節鉞，番漢仰威厚。
風雨對床眠，臥我南州舊。
別君又四稔，來看花園口。
遠矣神禹功，群歌霖雨乎。
竭來居寶島，匆匆十年久。
搔首立踟躕，太息神州覆。
賤子六十二，頭白成衰朽。
先生登八十，松柏視蒲柳。
道遠隔重洋，未由獻扈酒。
寫君太谷山，鳳翼瞻崇秀。
德人存其天，自保期頤壽。
願言挽天河，看洗紅塵垢。

庚子五月自三巴寫寄台灣，恭介友琴老長兄八十大慶。大千弟張爰頓首再拜。


Artist’s seals

Zhang Yuan 張爰
Daqian Jushi 大千居士
Chang gong tian nan lao 長共天難老
Yun’ao jinse zheng wei shou 雲璈錦瑟爭為壽
Dafeng Tang 大風堂


Published references

The Rustic Studio Collection of Chinese Paintings 陋室齋藏中國繪畫, Hong Kong: Rustic Studio Collection, 2019, cat. no. 20, pp. 53–54.

Sotheby's, Hong Kong , April 7, 2006, lot 195; to Wadsworth; John S. Wadsworth Jr. and Bette Sue Wadsworth , San Francisco (2006–present)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Noble Virtues: Nature as Symbol in Chinese Art," September 10, 2022–January 29, 2023.