Artist

Jin Kun

Chinese, 1662 to 1746

Painting · Works on paper (ink and watercolor)

Jin Kun is a Qing dynasty Chinese painter, active from 1662 to 1746, whose works continue to circulate in the classical Chinese painting auction market today. Public documentation of his life and practice is thin compared to major Qing masters, so his significance for collectors rests less on a well-told biography than on a persistent, if modest, presence in the drawing and watercolor category at auction across multiple market databases.

Nationality
Chinese
Media
Painting, Works on paper (ink and watercolor)
Movement
Qing dynasty painting, Traditional Chinese painting
Education
Not confirmed in available sources
  • 1662 to 1746Active datesQing dynasty painter, per Artprice and Lot-Art
  • 32Recorded auction appearancesArtprice, mainly in the Drawing-Watercolor category
  • Not publicly confirmedAll-time auction recordNo single verified top lot with price, house, and date located as of 2026-07-09
  • None identifiedCurrent representationHistorical artist; no gallery or estate representation confirmed in available sources

Jin Kun's dates, 1662 to 1746, are corroborated by two independent auction-market databases, Artprice and Lot-Art, which places his active period within the Qing dynasty. No museum biography, training record, or primary scholarly source confirming his birthplace, teachers, or patrons was located in available research. One specific work attributed to him, a landscape titled Fishing Village (渔村图), appears in Artnet's auction listings, offering a rare concrete example of his subject matter, though it should not be read as establishing a broader signature style without further documentation.

Because "Jin Kun" and "Kun Jin" both appear as name orderings for this same artist across market databases, and because other contemporary artists share the surname or given name Jin or Kun, including Li Jin and Du Kun, collectors and researchers should take care to confirm they are looking at records for the 1662 to 1746 painter rather than an unrelated modern figure.

No major exhibitions, awards, or honors for Jin Kun could be confirmed in available sources, and no verbatim quotations from named critics in major outlets were located. This likely reflects the limits of what is indexed in open, English-language art-market research for an artist active three centuries ago, rather than a documented absence of scholarly attention; readers seeking a fuller critical or exhibition history should consult specialist Chinese-painting scholarship and auction-house catalog essays directly.

Jin Kun's auction footprint is recorded by Artprice as 32 appearances at public sale, concentrated in the Drawing-Watercolor category associated with classical Chinese ink and color paintings on paper. Aggregated results on MutualArt show sale prices reaching into the tens of thousands of US dollars for paintings and somewhat lower figures for works on paper, but these are indicative ranges rather than a verified single record. A specific all-time high, with confirmed work title, price, currency, auction house, and sale date, could not be established from publicly available sources as of 2026-07-09, and no current gallery or estate representation was identified.

Treat any reference to "Jin Kun" with care: the name appears in both family-name-first order (Jin Kun) and Western, given-name-first order (Kun Jin) across major auction databases, and it is easily confused with contemporary artists who share part of the name. There is no catalogue raisonne, no confirmed museum collection holding his work, and no verified single auction record, so provenance research and direct consultation of auction-house lot notes are the most reliable path to authentication and valuation. Given the thinness of public documentation, collectors should weight any market claim about this artist against the specific lot records of the auction house involved rather than aggregated third-party estimates.

Data current as of 2026-07-09.

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