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Hello everyone,

I recently purchased this Chinese landscape painting at a thrift store in Minnesota, USA, and I’m hoping someone can help identify the artist.

Here is what I’ve been able to determine:

* Painting image measures approximately 16.5 × 24 inches (42 × 61 cm).
* Ink and light color on xuan (rice) paper.
* The artwork itself has no backing paper attached. The reverse is simply the back of the xuan paper and shows no labels, inscriptions, or gallery marks.
* The inscription appears to be dated 1986年六月 (June 1986).
* The signature may read 蔡鸿炳 (Cai Hongbing), but I’m not confident in that reading.
* There are two red seals below the signature, one of which appears to correspond to the artist’s name.

I’ve searched Chinese artist directories, auction sites, seal databases, and reverse image searches but have not been able to identify the artist or find another example of this painting.

I’m mainly hoping someone might be able to:

1. Confirm the reading of the signature.
2. Read or identify the two seals.
3. Identify the artist, if known.
4. Offer an opinion on whether this appears to be the work of a professional artist or an amateur/local painter.

Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time!

1. Signature is 蔡瑪珎大; the first seal contains the same characters, but in a different script. I am puzzled by this name, have not seen one like it before. 珎 can be read instead as 珍, but I get no hits on these four characters, whether 珍 is swapped in or not. I Nagy may have more to offer on this.
2. the second seal seems to read 淑貞書画
3. The Chinese surname Cai is not uncommon, but I have never seen the three remaining characters as a given name before and am guessing some other convention is being used that I'm unfamiliar with.
4. Painting and calligraphy quality are not high; the wrinkle in the picture indicates inattentive mounting. So likely an amateur's work, or possibly something intended for tourists.

It's just my guess that the self-selected Christian name of the artist, "Martha" was deliberately transcribed in a way that it could be misinterpreted.
The standard transliteration of Martha adapted for Spanish and Portuguese contexts is 瑪尓塔　Ma er ta, And 瑪尓大 is also prononunced Ma er da.
If we place the 𤣩 (jade) radical before 尓, we get the character 珎, which is pronounced "Zhen" but contains the component 尓. This may explain why the standardized form 珍 is not used.

It is highly likely that his given name is 淑貞Shuzen.

With regards,
I.Nagy

Correction,
....that her given name.... - is correct.
I.Nagy

thanks, just able to see this now for some reason. looks like we both got to a similar place!

Further to whatever I wrote yesterday that hasn't been posted yet, it occurred to me that the artist may not be Chinese, which would potentially explain the lack of traditional technique in the brushwork of the painting and the four character name. That is, the artist's surname may begin with something that sounds similar to "Cai" and have a given name akin to "Martha", as the remaining three characters are pronounced "ma-er-da". The calligraphy in the signature is not bad but a number of the characters in the date are off balance.

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