Scroll Painting, Deer Under the Cypress, by Chiang Yee, ink and colour on paper, 1935

Painting, two deera under a Cypress tree in a landscape

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Purchased, 2017.

The vendor inherited this painting and FE.73-2017 as part of a large collection put together by his fatehr and grandfather. These works were probably collected in the 1960s or 70s.

The artist and writer Chiang Yee (1903-1977) came to Britain in 1933, where he lived and worked until 1955. During this time he wrote a successful series of illustrated travelogues. The books describe his life in London and Oxford during the turbulent years of the Second World War and record his travels to the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, Edinburgh and Dublin. Illustrated throughout, with his own unique ink and watercolour paintings, sketches and poems, they represent a significant artistic, as well as literary project. Notably among the first Chinese writers to write books in English in the first half of the 20th century, Chiang enjoyed a prolific publishing career in Britain, in which he also published two seminal texts on Chinese painting and calligraphy, memoirs of his childhood in China, and several children’s books.

In addition to his publications, Chiang engaged in a wide variety of other cultural and educational activities, including lecturing on Chinese art, curating and teaching Chinese language at SOAS. As a result he became a widely recognised and consulted authority on Chinese culture in Britain and served as an interpreter of Chinese culture to western audiences at a time when general and academic interest in China was increasing.

This scroll painting, signed and dated to 1935, depicts Richmond Park in London, and is one of the few scroll paintings the artist ever produced. It is one of only two works by the artist in the V&A collection to depict a definitively London scenery.

FE.72-2017