Most of July I spent doing an insurance appraisal for Asian Art, personal property, lost during the Palisades Fire in Southern California in 2023. The client had a list of 11 properties, most Korean in origin, vintage in age, and one large Chinese landscape painting. He had lived at the property for 51 years, but all documentation photographs, letters, everything, was lost in the fire. What he could, and did, was provide me with a letter of testimony, as to the contents for his insurance claim. This client was referred to me by a fellow appraiser for whom I have a great deal of respect.
The first item on his letter of testimony, or personal property Asian Art list, was Chinese landscape painting by famous artist. I told the client the first item would be the most difficult. I knew if I spent three hours on this property and got nowhere, it was not worth his time to pay me for an appraisal. My research methodology involved typing into Google who were the five top Chinese landscape artists? With that information, I sent images to my client and asked if any of the landscapes were similar to his painting. His response back to me was that the one that resembled his, was called Lofty Mount Lu and was a mountainous landscape. I took that information and typed into a site called Mutual Art, any similar paintings to Lofty Mount Lu. The owner said his painting was less impressionistic than those I had found. So in thinking about art search terms, I typed in Crisp Lofty Mount Lu like mountain landscape painting. From that search I sent examples to my client, did any of these paintings resemble his painting that was lost in the fire.? Yes, one painting in particular. At the end of my 25 hours of research, Li Keran and various renditions of Jinggang mountain, looked like his..
In researching the artist, I read upon his death in 1987 his widow donated 100 paintings to the Chinese government, therefore creating blockage of his artworks on the market. He was a supporter of Mao Tse-tung, a very proud Chinese and on his death, his widow donated 100 paintings to the government. His paintings had sold through Christies in Hong Kong for over $10 million USA. He had never left China to study abroad. Today you can find his paintings on the website Invaluable or Artnet occasionally through Christies, or Sotheby’s. The supply or availability is down but so is the value.
When I first started researching the ‘Chinese landscape painting done by famous artist,’ the client responded ‘oh what a genius’. I said ‘no, I was lucky’. That was not modesty, but truth. That mountain landscape painting by the famous artist was worth $2.4 million. The rest of the 10 items came to a replacement value a $55,000. I assured him it was luck that I discovered the right artist and gave another nod to my Buddha.
This is the skeleton kimono collection I appraised recently. Fun challenging job.
https://cynthiashaver.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Skeleton-2025-sales-11-7-25-1.pdf