Leifeng Pagoda in the Sunset (hanging scroll)

Dong Bangda was born in Fuyang, Zhejiang province. His courtesy name was Fuwen or Feiwei and literary name Dongshan. He passed the Imperial Examination in the eleventh year of Emperor Yongzheng’s reign (1733) and began to work as a government official. He was involved in the editing work of the book Treasure Box of the Stone Moat (shiqubaoji). Dong’s highest position inside the government was President of Minister of Rites (libushangshu) and was given the privilege of riding on horseback within the Forbidden City. He was a calligrapher and moreover a notably skilled painter. On landscape painting, he not only learned from painters back in the Yuan Dynasty, but also the “Four Wangs” – the four most accomplished mountain-and-water painters in the early Qing dynasty. He heavily employed the use of dry brush and thus created a grand and powerful effect in his paintings. He was renowned as one of the “Three Dongs in the past and the present”, with the other two being Dong Yuan and Dong Qichang.