169 - A large painting of assembly of Daoist deities

A large painting of assembly of Daoist deities China, inscription dated 1702, signed Gu Quan, Qing Dynasty 135 x 94,8 cm (280 x 108,5 cm) / Box 132 x 13 x 13,5 cm Ink and colours on silk, mounted as a hanging scroll. An extraordinary, densely populated, and iconographically rare masterpiece of Daoist sacred art, serving as a monumental altar painting depicting a grand assembly of the Daoist pantheon. This opulent composition unites over 80 individually characterized figures, seamlessly divided into the three cosmic realms of the universe, who have gathered for a solemn audience and inspection. Lower left signed and dated: Renwu chongjiu hui yu Jingxinzhai Yanxiang Gu Quan (Painted in the year Renwu on the Double-Nine Festival in the Jingxin Studio by Yanxiang Gu Quan). Two seals. From an old German private collection, collected from the 1970s to 2000 - A few cracks, professionally restored and mounted, with a matching wooden box Gu Quan (顧銓, active ca. 1680-1730), also known by his Küartist’s name Yanxiang (硯香), was a highly esteemed Chinese court painter (Neiting Gongfeng) of the early to mid-Qing Dynasty, active around 1702 during the reign of Emperor Kangxi. He was renowned at the imperial court as an unrivalled virtuoso in figurative compositions as well as in large-scale Buddhist and Daoist sacred art. He attained particular historical significance through official state commissions to produce masterful, precise reinterpretations and copies ofrenowned Song and Yuan masterpieces, significant examples of which are still housed today in the National Palace Museum in Taipei