The widow of Xu Beihong (1895-1953) is selling the only two works of the master artist in her possession in the coming week in an attempt to sustain the Xu Beihong Memorial Museum.

Eighty-one-year-old Liao Jingwen donated all the other 1,250 works of Xu and the 1,100 cultural relics in Xu's collection to the central government after the artist's death in 1953.

Liao suffers from severe diabetes and is in a critical financial situation.

The Horse Album and the Album of Sketches on Calcutta are to be auctioned by the China Sungari International Auction Co Ltd on December 4 at the Asia Hotel in Beijing.

"We will do our best to make a good sale of the two albums. Some of those who donated their art collections to national collections in the 1950s really need help," said Yi Suhao, general manager of the auction company.

"Those still alive are all very old. Most are suffering from financial difficulties," he added.

Yi's company, which is one of the major five art auctioneers in the Chinese mainland, will give a public viewing from November 29 to December 1 at the hotel. Its three-day autumn auction kicks off on December 2.

"We have the honor to put the two important albums under our hammer out of sheer luck. Ms Liao meant to donate all of Xu's works to the government in 1953, and after having done so she discovered the two at the bottom of a case containing clothes," said Yi.

Liao regards the two as emblems of her memories of her late husband.

"I wanted to have the two works accompany me in my tomb. But after many sleepless and tearful nights, I decide to transfer them to people who will love them as much as I do," she said.

She also needs the money from selling the two albums because the public Xu Beihong Memorial Museum, built after the artist's death, is having financial difficulties.

The two albums are among the best of Xu's art, said Zhao Yu, who is with the auction company.

Xu created both in 1940 in Calcutta, India.

The Horse Album, which includes five of his ink paintings on horses, has a floor price of five million yuan (US$617,000).

Xu traveled around India and Kashmir on horseback the year he was lecturing at a Calcutta university at the invitation of Indian poet, artist and social activist Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), according to Liao.

"He told me that his greatest achievement made during his one year's stay in India was that the horses in his pictures managed to meet his own requirements," she said.

The other album on sale, with a floor price of 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million), includes 44 sketches including Tagore, Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi, local drummers, folk artists, elephants and eagles.

(China Daily November 25, 2005)