Taiwan Ancient Painting FDC

Taiwan FDC
Name: Ancient Chinese Painting "A Hundred Deer" by Ignace Sichelbart, Cing Dynasty
Date of Issue: 16 July 2008
Number: Sp.523

To promote an appreciation of ancient Chinese art and philately, this Post is issuing a set of eight stamps (each with a denomination of NT$5.00) that is based on the Cing Dynasty painting Bailutu (A Hundred Deer 百鹿圖) by Ignace Sichelbart from the National Palace Museum collection. The full painting will be printed in a se-tenant block of eight stamps in two rows of four. The eight stamps are not uniform in size. Instead there are five different sizes of stamp. This variety of sizes enables the se-tenant block to be broken up into compositionally coherent individual stamps.

Ignace Sichelbart (1708-1780, Chinese name Ai Ci-meng 艾启蒙 or 艾啟蒙, style name Sing-an) was from Bohemia (part of present day Czech Republic). He became a Cing court painter in 1745 (the tenth year of Emperor Cianlong's reign), working in Ruyi Hall in the palace along with Giuseppe Castiglione and Jean Denis Attiret. Conferred a title of the third rank, he was especially good at painting birds. Bailutu (or A Hundred Deer) depicts a group of deer wandering on an open meadow between frosted trees with rugged slopes in the background.

The deer can be seen in a great variety of poses—grazing, resting, swimming, drinking water, running, butting heads, or kneeling while making calls.

Comment: I'm so stupid, I forgot to ask my friend to make the minisheet FDC for me. It's a beautiful minisheet, but I miss it. :(

2007 Taiwan Ancient Chinese Painting FDC (Eighteen Scholars of the T'ang)
2007 Taiwan Ancient Chinese Painting Minisheet FDC (Eighteen Scholars of the T'ang)
2008 Taiwan Ancient Chinese Painting FDC (A Hundred Deer)