Chen Da-fen

The museum’s collected Asian paintings consist of ink painting and gouache artworks, which are mostly created on traditional handmade xuan paper, hemp paper, or on silk. The final artworks are either mounted and made into scrolls or framed, which are the distinctive ways that Asian paintings are conserved and displayed. 

    Taiwanese veteran gouache painter LIN Yu-Shan’s ZHOU Lien Hsi, an ink painting on paper scroll created in 1929, was a selected artwork for the 3rd Taiwan Art Exhibition. It was discovered during the restoration by comparing with old photographs of the original painting that the painting has been cropped smaller. It was hypothesized that the upper portion of the painting may have been severely damaged and was discarded during the last restoration, with the painting restored as a scroll. With no record of how the artwork was originally framed, it was decided to once again restore the painting based on the scroll format opted in the last restoration. 

ZHOU Lien Hsi before and after restoration