‘PINE TREES’, BY SUN SONG (1882-1962), DATED 1924China. Ink on paper. With a silk brocade frame and mounted as a hanging scroll. Boldly painted with vivid brushstrokes, depicting two pines with gnarled branches issuing needles.Inscriptions: Upper right, signed ‘Sun Song’, dated ‘In the Spring of the Year of Jiazi’ (corresponding to 1924), and inscribed ‘iron dragon’. One seal of the artist.Provenance: The Oliver Impey Collection of Modern Paintings. Oliver Impey (1936-2005) was the President of the Oriental Ceramics Society (1997-2000), a noted curator at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and a leading authority on the arts of Japan. He studied at the University of Oxford,pleting his thesis while working in London at Sotheby's, where his connoisseur and remarkable breadth of knowledge began to develop, as well as his intimate knowledge of the art trade and vigilant eye for a bargain. In 1967, he was appointed Assistant Keeper for Japanese Art at the Ashmolean, and was able, as a Sotheby's colleague put it rather bluntly, to move “straight from the whorehouse to the nunnery”. For nearly four decades, Impey was a tireless acquirer of fine objects, vastly expanding the Museum's holdings. He designed and raised the funds for a new Japanese Decorative Arts gallery to house these treasures and he also befriended several generous benefactors, who made important donations to the Museum. The respect with which he was held in Japan was marked by the award of the Koyama Fujio Memorial Prize in 1997. His personal collection contained works by major masters from Japan, China, and several other Asian countries, of which many were sold by Christie’s in Hong Kong in the late 2000s.Condition: Conditionmensurate with age, showing some old wear, creasing, foxing, water stains, and minimal losses.Dimensions: 148.5 x 39.5 cm image size, and 203 x 51.3 cm total sizeSun Song (1882-1962), style name Youzhi, was a Chinese painter from Yinxian in Zhejiang. He was a student of Wu Changshuo (1844-1927) and a noted collector.孫松(1882-1962)《鐵虯》，1924年中國，紙本水墨，掛軸。筆法大膽生動，松樹遒健如龍。款識：鐵虯，甲子年春孫松；鈴印：孫松之印