Yan Shengsun

Christie's catalogues an artist named Yan Shengsun as the painter of "Pine and Southern Mountains," a scroll in ink on gold-flecked paper, dated to the autumn of the xinhai year (1671) and dedicated to the collector and official Zhou Lianggong (1612 to 1672). Sotheby's separately catalogues a Yan Shengsun in a Chinese art sale. Both houses agree on a birth year of 1623. They differ on the year of death: Christie's gives 1702 and Sotheby's gives 1706. No source resolving this discrepancy was located, so the exact death date is unconfirmed. No school, degree, specific birthplace, or details of training could be confirmed, and no gallery, foundation, estate representation, or museum collection holding could be confirmed.

Other artists with similar-sounding names are separately documented and should not be confused with this entry. Yan Shanchun, born in Hangzhou in 1957, is a contemporary painter and printmaker represented by Chambers Fine Art and Hanart TZ. Yan Sun is a Chinese-born painter based in Ohio who has taught at Muskingum University. Yang Shen-sum, a Lingnan-school painter born in 1913 in Taishan, Guangdong, moved to Hong Kong and later Canada and died in Hong Kong in 2004. None of these individuals is confirmed to be the same person as the Qing dynasty painter catalogued as Yan Shengsun.

No reviews, catalogue essays, or named critical commentary about Yan Shengsun were located in the sources reviewed.

No confirmed realized auction price for a work by Yan Shengsun could be located. The only public auction reference found is a Sotheby's estimate of USD 800 to 1,200 for a lot in the 2015 sale "Saturday at Sotheby's: Chinese Art" (lot 896); the available catalogue record shows the estimate but not a realized price, so this cannot be treated as an auction record. A separate Christie's lot, "Pine and Southern Mountains," is catalogued to the artist, dated 1671, but no price is shown in the available record either. No auction record, meaning a confirmed highest realized price, can currently be established for this name.

Yan Shengsun is documented by name and by an agreed birth year of 1623 in Christie's and Sotheby's Chinese painting catalogues, but the year of death is recorded inconsistently (1702 per Christie's, 1706 per Sotheby's), and no catalogue raisonne, confirmed museum holding, or confirmed realized auction price could be located. Collectors should treat the death date and any market history as unresolved pending further primary-source research, and should not confuse this name with other artists who have similar-sounding names but are separately and independently documented.