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Hello everyone,
​I am seeking assistance with the identification and dating of a large Japanese hanging scroll (kakejiku) recently acquired from a private estate in South Africa.
​Subject Matter: The Eighteen Scholars (十八学士).
Dimensions: Approximately 200cm in length.
Construction: The painting (honshi) is on paper, while the mounting is a formal multi-toned silk. Interestingly, it features contrasting brown silk pillars (hashira) on the sides and matching brown ichimonji and fuutai.
Signature/Date: It is signed Zhang Ying (張英) and carries a Jiachen year inscription.
​I am curious to know if the community feels the brushwork is consistent with a mid-19th-century work (1844) or if it is a later Meiji-era (1904) tribute piece. Any insights into the specific seals or the quality of the mounting would be greatly appreciated.
​Thank you in advance for your time and expertise.

Hi Christian,

Thanks so much for sharing your research on this. Unfortunately I think it's a relatively recent (1980s/90s?) imitation of Zhang Ying's work and is Chinese rather than Japanese. The only Zhang Ying I see information about was Chinese and lived 1920-1984, so if taken at face value, the jiachen date in this inscription would be 1964. For comparison, here are two examples of Zhang's pictures online that seem credible:

This painting is dated equivalent to 1963, or one year before the ostensible date in your painting's inscription: https://pic.yupoo.com/fotomag/76da2c40/88dda143.jpg (the full webpage where it appears shows works by Zhang's teacher (Li Geng) and related painters from Fujian province, but above is the only image by Zhang shown: https://art.icity.ly/events/ehyz35v)

This exhibition poster shows a (detail of?) a painting by Zhang dated to 1942, two decades earlier: http://xyxbwg.com/nd.jsp?id=449

Some significant differences in the figures' scale, sense of movement (in the 1963 picture), and execution to me favor the two online images of Zhang's and suggest a different source for the painting you found; similarly the vegetation in Zhang's 1942 picture strikes me as more vivid and engaging.

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