Lai Fong and his sailing ships

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Anatol
Posts: 1037
Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2009 2:13 pm

Lai Fong and his sailing ships

Post by Anatol » Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:49 pm

One of the Djibouti 2019 stamps depicts a clipper without a name. The design of the stamp is made from a painting by the Chinese marine artist Lai Fong. Lai Fong (1870-1900)was one of a group of Chinese marine painters who worked for the captains and merchants of the oriental trade. Painting portraits of their ships in oil on canvas. While most of these painters worked in Canton, Whampoa, Hong Kong or Shanghai, only one, Lai Fong, worked outside of China in the Indian port of Calcutta. Although many China Trade painters signed or labeled their canvases, Lai Fong was one of the few to regularly date them. From these dates we can see an active painter who worked from the middle 1870s through about 1905. During that period he painted vessels from across the globe. Lai Fong successfully melded the conventions of European and American ship portrait painting with the China Trade oil painting style that developed after 1800. Lai Fong was a leading marine painter of the 19th century and was known for capturing every detail of the ship and the realistic precision with which he reproduced the ocean. This talent was rarely found among Chinese artists of that era. (See the pictures of the ships: clipper "Woolton" and "Sierra Miranda").
Djibouti 2019; 250fd; SG? Source: http://www.juliaboston.com/cen_painting637.html
Attachments
img2824.jpg
Woolton.jpg
Miranda.jpg

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