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The colored ink painting "Lady with Flowers" (completed during the 1960s) belongs to the artist's Shanghai period and was originally in the possession of Madam Xi Suhua, the wife of the founder of modern Chinese architecture and renowned educator Feng Jizhong (born 1915). In 1956, the Feng Family made the acquaintance of Lin Fengmian, who was then living in seclusion in Shanghai's Nanchang Road, and Xi Suhua studied painting under Lin for a while. Lin even adopted the family's three-year-old child, Feng Yeh, as his goddaughter. The Fengs' relationship with Lin remained close, and during the Cultural Revolution Xi Suhua and the rest of the family did what they could to look after the artist, who had been put in prison. In 1978, Feng Yeh, who had devoted her life to Lin, followed him from Shanghai to Hong Kong, where she took care of the artist during the late years of his life. Xi Suhua and her husband later emigrated to the United States.

Art critic Lang Shaojun once pointed out that Lin Fengmian's belle paintings from the 1960s has about it "a charming feel of color and modernity". Lin was able to cultivate this kind of style because his painting was irmly rooted in the long tradition of Chinese ceramic arts, in particular Song Dynasty Guan Yao and Long Quan porcelain with its soft, translucent colors. Lin himself is on record as saying that he was influenced by the purity and elegance of Song Dynasty aesthetics. "Lady with Flowers" is one of the more important works of the artist's Shanghai period, which produced a number of works showing ladies in traditional Chinese attire, giving sample expression to Lin's predilection for classical grace and refinement. As Lang puts it, "Lin's colored ink style can be divided into two basic categories. One emphasizes the outlining of clear contours in black ink before color is applied - a style that cuts closer to conventional Chinese depictions of court ladies. The other approach focuses more on the play of color and light, the alternating use of black ink and opaque white for the contours and creases of the garments, and the flat application of ink to create an integrated whole that oscillates between the concrete and the abstract. The result is an impression of subtle and understated loveliness, perceived as if through a thin veil. Lin's belle paintings ("paintings of beautiful ladies") from this period of his career all capture a beauty that may be gazed at but must remain out of reach, a sophisticated quality that epitomizes the gentle refinement and quiet elegance of oriental women in the classical style, dreamlike and poetic. While these paintings may not breathe the rather ascetic aloofness of the lines of Tang poetry 'The petals are falling quietly, but my heart maintains the equilibrium of the gentle chrysanthemum', they do speak of the time-honored ideal of 'being pleasant without being immodest'. In terms of form and atmosphere, these works clearly show the artist's debt to Song Dynasty ceramic art with its lucid simplicity, but the attractive coloring, modernity and lyrical expressiveness are most likely products of Lin's personal experience, resonating like echoes of his distant youth." (from Lang Shaojun, Lin Fengmian)

The background of "Lady with Flowers" is kept concise and abstract, almost austere in its straightforward composition, thus helping to accentuate the white lotus in a plain vase with its connotations of elegance and poesy. The lady's sitting posture, proper yet graceful, gives her the air of an oriental goddess of beauty as she contemplates the lowers in her hand with a faint smile on her lips. The artist manages to preserve much of the understated appeal that characterizes traditional Chinese ink painting, but at the same time the composition and execution betray a strong European influence, reflecting the painter's efforts to reform Chinese visual art. Meanwhile, the combination of ink, pastel and water colors adds layers of carefully orchestrated complexity and enriches the expressive power of traditional Chinese techniques. In particular, the use of opaque white to help delineate the contours and texture of the dress is a touch of genius, as it gives the painting an animated brightness that exemplifies the successful merging of traditional and modern styles. Among modern-time painters in the Chinese genre of belle paintings ("paintings of beautiful ladies"), Lin Fengmian stands out as one of a kind.

In his 'Treatise on Lin Fengmian', critic Ding Xiyuan analyses the artist's influence on contemporary Chinese art, stating that Lin was one of the pioneers who were successful in further developing both the color and composition of traditional painting. Standing in the tradition of the Shanghai School, Lin kept creating "symphonies of color." As Ding writes, "Lin's sense of color is outstanding, and his rich palette a feast for the observer's eyes. He likes to apply his colors in large chunks and with broad strokes, but not without extreme sensitivity to subtle layers and sub-layers as he mixes and constantly rearranges his beloved primary colors to construct beauty out of ine chromatic detail. From his early work, which was dominated by hues of white, via his middle period with its preoccupation with black, to his late penchant for red tones, we see an artist constantly experimenting with chromatic shades and transitions. During his early 'white phase', the formal aesthetics of flowing lines were of particular importance, and ink or paint was applied softly to draw faint, sometimes barely visible contours. Most of the picture was left white...." As Ding points out, Lin's early output is marked by white hues and soft colors, reflective of the artist's secluded pre-Cultural Revolution life in Shanghai. After his wife and daughter moved to Brazil, he began to lead a less withdrawn life, meeting with colleagues and students on a regular basis, and even publishing his views on art in a variety of journals and periodicals. During this period, Lin did the occasional oil painting, but mostly he focused on colored ink paintings of belle paintings (beautiful ladies) and landscapes. Then disaster struck, and during the Cultural Revolution Lin was forced to destroy more than 2000 of his own colored ink paintings, the fruit of many years of untiring work. This is why today so little of the artist's prolific output from that time remains extant, most of which are pieces he gave away to friends and students. As far as we know, Lin created more than a thousand belle paintings - immediately discarding those he wasn't satisied with - before truly developing his individual style in the genre.

This lot, "Lady with Flowers", is rightfully regarded as one of the pearls among the works still extant from the artist's Shanghai period (which for the reasons quoted above are much fewer than those from his later years in Hong Kong). Its value is further enhanced by the appreciation and praise it received from Lin's close friend Xi Suhua, as well as the connoisseurs of the Sanhuai House.