Spring Offerings

Signature:

Inscription: Artist’s inscription and signature (2 columns in semi-cursive script)

The narcissus is long-lived and the fungus never withers.
This year-end scene consoles one's loneliness.
Nature has placed an old rock just there.
The barbarians serve the red silk.

Done on the day before the winter solstice of the jiwei year (1919) by Wu Changshuo from Anji [in Zhejiang Province] in his 76th year.

[Translation by Keita Itoh and Lawrence Wu with Jean Schmitt and Caron Smith in Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, ed., Later Chinese Painting and Calligraphy: 1800–1950, Volume I: Text, New York: Random House, 1986, p. 124. Modified. The Romanization of Chinese characters has been changed from the Wade-Giles system to the pinyin system.]

水仙長壽芝不凋，
歲晚風光慰寂寥。
老石一卷天位置，
昆侖奴子侍紅綃。

己未長至先一日，安吉吳昌碩，時年七十有六。


Artist’s seals

Cangshi 倉石
Wu Junqing yin 吳俊卿印
Wu Changshuo dalong 吳昌碩大聾


Collectors’ seals

Chen Shuren 陳樹人 (1884–1948)
Chen Shuren yin陳樹人印

An Siyuan 安思遠 (Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, 1929–2014)
An Siyuan cang 安思遠藏

Robert Hatfield Ellsworth American, New York (until 1988; donated to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The World of Scholars' Rocks: Gardens, Studios, and Paintings," February 1–August 20, 2000.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Between Two Cultures: A Selection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Chinese Paintings from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection," January 30–August 19, 2001.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "A Millennium of Chinese Painting: Masterpieces from the Permanent Collection," September 8, 2001–January 13, 2002.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Cultivated Landscapes: Reflections of Nature in Chinese Painting with Selections from the Collection of Marie-Hélène and Guy Weill," September 10, 2002–February 9, 2003.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Chinese Painting, Masterpieces from the Permanent Collection," August 28, 2004–February 20, 2005.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art of the Brush: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy," March 12–August 14, 2005.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Four Seasons," January 28–August 13, 2006.

Caron Smith. "19th and 20th Century Chinese Painting in the Ellsworth Collection." Orientations, 19, no. 2, February 1988. Article reprint issue, Feb. 1988, pp. 2–21, ill. in color p. 10, fig. 9.

Chow, Fong. "The Modern Chinese Art Debate." Artibus Asia 53, no. 1/2 (1993). fig. 4.

Hearn, Maxwell K. "Modern Chinese Painting, 1860–1980: Selections from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 58, no. 3 (Winter 2001). p. 15.