Xu Conglong

CHINA, Zhejiang, Jiaxing; Qing dynasty

Xu Conglong was a painter also known as Zuowang or Hutou. He was born in Jiashan county of Jiaxing, but later moved to Changshou, Jiangsu.
Recommended to work in the imperial palace, he was eventually promoted as an official in charge of painting. He was good at drawing landscapes, flowers, and birds, in which he emulated the works of painters of the Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties. He was also skilled in illustrating Buddhist and Daoist figures.
Xu was once invited by the official Jin Shiyang in Jiangsu to illustrate the Five Hundred Arhats. Taking a total of six years, the work was completed in 1712 and was comprised of 200 paintings measuring 274 cm high and 125 cm wide. Kang Youwei’s connoisseur seal was stamped onto the piece, and he commented: “This work by Xu Hutou will be treasured generation after generation.” When the painting was first displayed at Youqing Temple in Jiangxi, it was well-received. Later, it was kept at Qixian Temple in Jiangxi. Today, however, only 112 pieces survive. They are now kept at the Lushan Museum in Jiangxi.