AFTER TAO CHENG Hare Gazing at the Moon, Ming Dynasty or laterAFTER TAO CHENGHare Gazing at the Moon, Ming Dynasty or laterInk and colour on silk, hanging scroll, with thirteen collector's seals. 39cm (15 3/8in) wide × 89.5cm (35 1/4in) long.明或以后 （仿）陶成 蟾宫月兔 絹本設色 立軸鈐印：「濟之」「君謙」「天籟閣」「寄敖」「檇李」「退密」「项子京家珍藏」「桼園吏」「信公珍賞」「琴書堂」「瑁湖」「顓菴」「王蔭嘉印」The present lot portrays a hare gazing at the moon amidst bamboo, flowers and rocks. It appears to be after a work of identical subject by the Ming dynasty artist Tang Cheng, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Zhang Zhimin, in Zhongguo huihua shi tujian: Huaniao juan, vol.3, Jinan, 2014, pl.168, p.50.Tao Cheng (active in the 15th century) was a native of Baoying, present day Jiangsu Province. Passing the provincial level Imperial examination in the seventh year of Chenghua period (1471), he was a learned scholar, adept at poetry, calligraphy and painting. He adopted the blue-green manner in landscape painting and was extremely skilled in painting rabbits, bamboo and flowers. Some of his works are recorded in the Qing Imperial Collected Treasures of the Stony Moat 石渠寶笈 (compiled in 1745) and survive in the collections of the Palace Museum, Beijing and the Shanghai Museum. The collectors' seals indicate the sequence of collectors through whose hands the painting has allegedly passed, including 王鏊 Wang Ao (1450–1524), 楊循吉 Yang Xunji (1456–1544), 項元汴 Xiang Yuanbian (1525–1590), 耿昭忠 Geng Zhaozhong (1640–1686), 王頊齡 Wang Xuling (1642–1725), 王掞 Wang Shan (1645–1728) and 王蔭嘉 Wang Yinjia (1892–1949).is_parse: 20230413image: yuzhan_bonhams_item.jpgsold_price_type: £