# Lanfang Mei artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/lanfang-mei/
Profile generated: 2026-08-24T12:35:29.261Z
Quality: medium confidence, adequate sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1894-10-22
- Death date: 1961-08-07
- Nationality: Chinese
- Common media: Peking opera performance

## Portrait

![Lanfang Mei](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Mei_Lanfang.jpg)
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mei_Lanfang.jpg

## About Lanfang Mei

Mei Lanfang (1894–1961), presented on this page under the catalog-style name Lanfang Mei, was a Chinese Peking opera performer and an important figure in modern Chinese theater. Born Mei Lan, he became known by the stage name Mei Lanfang. His reputation centered on dan roles—the female-role tradition of Peking opera—and especially qingyi characters representing refined young or middle-aged women. He is commonly grouped with Shang Xiaoyun, Cheng Yanqiu, and Xun Huisheng as one of the Four Great Dan. His documented creative context belongs principally to performance history, not to a visual-art movement or a clearly established body of collectible visual works. Collectors may nevertheless encounter his name in auction records whose object type and relationship to the performer must be checked individually. Because Lanfang Mei, Mei Lanfang, Mei Lan, and other cataloguing variants can indicate the same person, entity matching should rely on lifespan, theatrical context, and authority identifiers rather than name order alone.

## Common works and media

The collected sources document Mei Lanfang's Peking opera performances, especially dan and qingyi roles, but do not establish a recurring body of paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, photographs, or editions made by him. Any auction item catalogued under this name should therefore be classified from its own description and supporting evidence rather than assigned a presumed medium.

## Market and appraisal context

Appraisal begins with identity: the catalog form Lanfang Mei should be reconciled with Mei Lanfang, Mei Lan, and authority-file variants, then checked against the 1894–1961 Peking opera performer. The supplied source pack contains an Appraisily auction-price page but no lot descriptions, major-auction-house extracts, realized-price data, dimensions, condition reports, provenance, or edition information. It therefore does not support a claim that any medium or auction category is typical, nor does it support a price trend. For an individual item, analysis should consider work type, authorship or attribution language, date, condition, provenance, edition status where relevant, and genuinely comparable public sales. Association with Mei Lanfang must not be treated as authorship without documentation.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine public artist-identity research with auction records and, when available, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots. For this profile, biographical identity is better supported than object-level market classification.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q526989
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/4938673/
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mei_Lanfang
- Wikipedia: https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mei_Lanfang
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/lanfang-mei/
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mei_Lanfang.jpg