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Question Please date and painter of image arm surgery legend

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ger
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Ger

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Please read date and find painter of this image of a legendary arm surgery:
The legendary Chinese warrior Guan Yu having his arm operated on by the renowned surgeon Hua Tuo without anesthetic, while playing the board game Go.
The arm was scraped to the bone to remove the poison of an arrow.

The text at the top is rather long, but translation would be welcome of course...
The text on the box was added.

 
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Do you mean you'd like a translation or do you want us to read the date and artist for our own pleasure/as a test?

It's a bit like those fake films of modern Chinese people undergoing heart surgery under 'acupuncture'
 
Ukigumo said:
Do you mean you'd like a translation or do you want us to read the date and artist for our own pleasure/as a test?
Click to expand...
As you like it...
.
But if you are indeed able to read the date, find the painter and translate the text as requested, you might as well communicate the result to us.
 
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甲申冬十月 Winter, 10th month 1884 (or 1944, or other multiple of 60).
Will take a look at the rest later.

I'm guessing this is before the days when the Chinese calendar was synched with the western calendar, so 10th month would be later than our October (hence the "Winter" included in the date).
 
The painter is Sakurama Seigai (桜間青崖 or 青涯 or 青厓), a Japanese painter (1786-1851) whose art name was 咸 (Kan - other pronunciations possible).

The writing on the box says "drawn by Sakurama Seigai. Image of Guan Yu winning at Igo". 櫻間青涯筆関羽圍碁全勝之圖

The part next to the year is Seigai's name + art name and seal, plus some other bits that I can't make out. The text, I believe, is describing the scene of the doctor's procedure on Guan Yu.

Edit: The usual caveat applies; I can't tell you if the signature is true or false. I'm just telling you what it says, along with some background info.
 
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Majestic, thanks very much!
It would make the date 1824, to go with the signature if true...
Just a thought, how much would Chinese and Japanese differ at that time, judged by the characters only?
Could a Japanese then read Chinese as if it were Japanese?
 
Even while it is a copy there are details the painting in the National Museum of Asian Art does not have. The table is done better and has corner decorations. At some places the clothing has more decoration. The bag too. The boy's face looks better. Would they both then be copies...?
 
Here's the scene from a 90's rendition of Romance of the Three Kingdoms depicting this surgery.

 
Chinese and Japanese would be mutually unintelligible, except of course to those who studied either language. Japanese could, of course pick out kanji and possibly get the general idea of the topic. But grammar and syntax are completely different, so its kind of like an American reading any European language.

(Well-educated Japanese might have been trained in the Chinese classics, and may be a bit more adept at understanding written Chinese).

I feel the writing next to the signature means the painting is Seigai's interpretation (not necessarily a copy) of a similar image drawn by somebody else. So your copy would be a replica of the original Seigai image. Maybe the original Seigai image was an homage to an earlier master. Just thinking out loud.
 
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