Ju Lian, the founder of the Lingnan School, has seen a significant rise in the value of his works in recent years. Just in the latest spring auction, a four-panel flower and bird painting sold for an impressive 1.903 million yuan, sparking considerable interest. With the upcoming autumn auction season, experts predict that his works will continue to gain momentum, drawing even more attention from collectors.
Collectors have observed certain trends in Ju Lian’s market: smaller pieces often command higher prices than larger ones. Among the formats, fans—especially round fans—are highly sought after, while bucket-shaped works are less valuable. Paintings with band-like compositions tend to be more expensive, and those featuring butterflies, dragonflies, and bees typically fetch higher prices than standard flower-and-bird paintings.
However, Ju Lian’s works are also frequently imitated. According to the Guangzhou Art Piao Xiang, there are numerous replicas on the market. This is partly due to his immense popularity during his lifetime, which led to a surge in demand. To meet this demand, some of his students would paint on his behalf, later signing and stamping the works. Over time, these imitations became harder to distinguish from genuine pieces.
Zhu Wanzhang, a researcher at the Guangdong Provincial Museum, notes that ghostwriting has been common throughout art history and is considered normal within the industry. Even today, such practices are generally accepted as part of the broader definition of authenticity. However, if a piece lacks the artist’s signature or brushwork, it is usually classified as an imitation.
One collector remarked that the prevalence of imitations reflects the high regard for Ju Lian’s work over the years. Despite this, the supply of his original works has remained limited, which contributed to lower prices in the past. Research by Zhu Wanzhang estimates that over a thousand of Ju Lian’s works exist globally, with about 80% held in museums and private collections in Guangdong and Hong Kong, and only a small portion available on the open market.
Xiang Xiang suggests that the relatively low prices in previous years were also due to the quality of many surviving works. He points out that most of Ju Lian’s pieces were small-format items like fans and scrolls, which were not widely appreciated until recently. Before that, these works were often overlooked, with larger, more prestigious pieces receiving greater attention and better preservation.
Some argue that the limited subject matter of Ju Lian’s paintings affected their value, but Xiang Xiang disagrees. He emphasizes that although Ju Lian may not have pioneered all techniques, he mastered and systematized them effectively, creating works that vividly capture the essence of nature.
While landscape paintings by Ju Lian are rare, the overall value of his works has risen sharply in recent years. A few years ago, some pieces could still be found for just a few thousand yuan, but now, the average price per square foot for his flower-and-bird paintings ranges between 10,000 and 30,000 yuan. Portrait works are rarer and more expensive, priced between 30,000 and 50,000 yuan per square foot, while landscapes remain extremely scarce.
Zhu Wanzhang believes the price increase is driven by several factors: the appearance of high-quality pieces in the market, the general rise in value of classical Chinese paintings, and growing academic interest in the "Two Residences" (Gao Jianfu and Ju Lian). Despite this, he notes that Ju Lian’s works are still undervalued compared to other prominent artists of the same era.
Collectors believe that as Ju Lian’s reputation continues to grow, there is still significant room for further appreciation in his works. In particular, since 2002, the northern Chinese market has begun to take a serious interest in his paintings, and after 2008, the number of his works appearing in the north has increased dramatically.
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