Overview

Luo Ping (1733-99; pseudonym, Liang Feng; of Jiangsu in Yangzhou), a high disciple of the priest-painter Jin Nong (1687-1764), who expanded upon his master's style and developed his own idiosyncratic technique in painting flowering plants, human figures, and Taoist and Buddhist figures. This painting is of Yuan Mei, a master among literary circles of the time. This mysterious and spiteful looking portrayal, which has the same tour-de-force as contemporary caricatures, is in line with Luo Ping's paintings of ghosts and demon-quellers that made him famous. He inscribed on the painting that Yuan Mei's family disapproved of this portrait, which they thought made him look like an old stoker or street vendor, and eventually, made Luo Ping take it back. This piece is significant not only as a representative work by Luo Ping, but also in studying the development of Chinese portrait paintings.