XU BEIHONG (1895 - 1953) China, dated 1944 80,1 x 41 cm Horse. Ink on paper, mounted as a hanging scroll. Signature by the artist: „For the fiftieth anniversary of Mister Keming donated with congratulations by Zhang Dehua and Zhan Zhidun, in the summer of the year 33 (1944) painted by Beihong“. One seal by the artist: „Xu“. Collection of an important German scholar, assembled in China between 1961 and 1966 Xu Beihong was the most influential of the Chinese painters who studied Western Art in Europe in the early 1920th. He studied in Paris and Berlin, travelled in Europe 1926-27 and in 1927 returned to China. In the following years he organized many international exhibitions on modern Chinese painting and in 1936 became director of the National Art Academy in Peking. He is most famous for his paintings of horses in which he combined Western realism with Chinese painting techniques.