The Lurking Tiger

The brothers Zhang Shanzi and Zhang Daqian (1899–1983) escorted the coffin of their deceased father Zhang Huaizhong (?–1925) to Langxi of Anhui Province in 1929, when this painting might have been painted. A year later, the two returned to the same place to celebrate their mother’s seventieth birthday, which allowed Zhang Daqian to inscribe on the piece finished a year ago by his elder brother Shanzi. The composition of a lurking tiger on a cliff amplifies the tension of the attack. Zhang Shanzi is a well-known tiger painter. In the 1930s, he once kept a tiger cub as a pet when dwelling in a classical garden in Suzhou.