Why Jin Ma matters
Jin Ma is a case study in how thin, name-variant market data can complicate an otherwise real art historical record. Major auction and market databases, including Artprice, Invaluable, AskART, and LotSearch, catalogue works under the name "Jin Ma" that correspond, by subject matter, period, and overlapping sale records, to the Chinese painter recorded elsewhere as Ma Jin (马晋), a flower-and-bird painter of the early to mid twentieth century. For collectors, the value of this profile lies less in a settled market thesis than in a clear-eyed account of what is and is not documented.
- Nationality
- Chinese
- Media
- Painting
- Movement
- Traditional Chinese painting, Guohua, Flower-and-bird genre
- Education
- Not documented in publicly available sources as of 2026-07-11.
- Signature motifs
- Flower-and-bird painting, Brush and ink on paper
By the numbers
- Ma Jin (马晋)Also cataloged asName order variant used across auction databases for the same market identity
- 1900 to 1970Recorded datesPer Artprice (artist ID 51269); other databases consulted do not provide independently corroborated birth or death dates
- None confirmedCatalogue raisonneNo published catalogue raisonne has been located
Biography
Public sources converge on a Chinese painter working in the traditional flower-and-bird genre (guohua) whose auction identity appears in Western databases both as "Jin Ma" and, elsewhere, in the more conventional family-name-first order as "Ma Jin." Market sources, including Artprice, give birth and death years of 1900 to 1970. No exact birth or death date, birthplace, or documented education has been located in the available sources.
No documented exhibition history, gallery representation, estate, or foundation could be confirmed from available sources, and no museum collection holding work by this artist could be confirmed either.
Critical reception
No verbatim critical commentary from named critics in major art publications has been located for this artist. The available record consists almost entirely of auction house cataloguing and brief market-database biographical notes rather than art-critical writing, so no attributable quotations are included here.
Market
No verifiable all-time auction record, meaning a specific work, price, currency, house, and sale date, could be confirmed for this artist from available sources. Auction-market listings under the name "Jin Ma" appear across several platforms, including Artprice, Invaluable, AskART, and LotSearch, and the same body of work is also catalogued elsewhere under "Ma Jin," which fragments the visible sales history across two name forms. One recent lot, catalogued as "attributed to" Ma Jin, appeared at China Arts Auction on 27 May 2026 with an estimate of USD 1,000 to 1,500; the realized price was not publicly available. Collectors researching this artist should search both name forms in any auction database before drawing conclusions about price history or supply.
What collectors should know
The single most important fact for a prospective buyer is the name ambiguity itself: works may be catalogued as "Jin Ma" in one database and "Ma Jin" in another. There is no published catalogue raisonne and no confirmed program of authentication. Collectors should treat any offered work with the same diligence they would apply to an artist with a thin, fragmented public record: verify provenance directly with the selling house, cross-check both name forms, and avoid assuming that a price seen under one name form reflects the full market for the artist.
Further reading and resources
Data current as of 2026-07-11.
