Possible Chinese Wood/Paper Picture - help with translation

[longtake]

Hello

I hope you can help me .. I bought this picture in a charity shop and dont know if it is chinese. If it is chinese I would like to know what the text means at the top and what script it is.

If it is not Chinese then I apologise for misposting :-)

Also it seems quite old and it seems to be a landscape painting with houses made out of cut paper and/or wood shavings. I cant seem to find anything like this and would appreciate if anyone knows what style of art this is??

Sorry about the poor quality of the image

Thanks in advance

Peter

[jbradfor]

I'm sure you can get a better picture of the characters if you try....

[biglizard]

Well,I'm sure that's chinese characters in cursive script,and the houses and trees in the picture are chinese style,

Sorry,I can't translate the characters,because they are not so clear for me to recognize..

[longtake]

Thanks for the responses .. I didn't realise quite how bad those photos were .. is this any better?

[ma3zi1]

Much better:

呆作？？？馬

呆作基維？馬

呆作基雞？馬

呆作基難？馬

呆作基難に馬

I can't read script too well though, sorry.

Could it be Japanese?

[jbradfor]

I think the 5th one is 口.

[ma3zi1]

Good call!

so.. it's 呆作基難口馬 ?

[jbradfor]

I hope you're not asking me, as I have no idea. 口 was the only one of the 6 I could get. It seems we make a good team

[longtake]

Thanks very much for trying to decipher it ..

I dont know any chinese and I put your characters into google translate and it came back with "I stayed for horse-based hard" ?!?!? :-)

I guess this could even refer to the name of a place?

[fengyixiao]

马江罗星塔果？

[biglizard]

Bingo！it should be 馬江羅星塔x

Note:for a picture like this,the title should be read from right to left

These characters are written in traditional chinese characters(fantizi),and in cursive script,so that's hard to recognize unless you can get a clue from the pic,there is a river and a tower,so you can guess the two characters "江"and"塔" and i'm sure the first one is 馬,so I just google "馬江 塔"

then i get the result and fit your picture.

The tower is located in Fuzhou,Fujian Province,Southeast China.

See photo attached.

[KonW]

马江罗星塔果?

------------

i think this is the most close

but the first one on the lest should be one more complex then 果

-----------------

after some search i think we almost get it

theres a 馬尾港(Pagoda Anchorage) in 福州, where the mountain 罗星 lies,,,on the mountain stands the 罗星塔, which is a landmark for 馬尾港(Pagoda Anchorage).

(http://baike.baidu.com/view/164084.htm)

there's a fight between french and qing china in 1883, which is called Battle of the Pagoda Anchorage/馬江海戰/馬江之役/馬尾海戰: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fuzhou

so i think this is what this pic, "马江罗星塔?" is about.

however, i still cant figure out what the last character is

---------------

ok,,my final guess :

马江罗星塔景, the view of the tower of 罗星 by the river mawei

[longtake]

Thanks KonW, biglizard and everyone else who looked at this ... you are stars!!.. Ive got lots I can google now .. really impressed with your research skills!!

I see that google translates the tower name you mention KonW 罗星 as "lo Star" and I see that there is a mention of Luoxing (Falling Star) Pagoda at Mawei mentioned here .. so I guess that could be the name of it???

Peter

[longtake]

Ok Sorry KonW .. you'd already told me it was called Luozing !! Thanks!!

[skylee]

ok,,my final guess :

马江罗星塔景,

I agree.

[ma3zi1]

Wow, I was way off!

Anyway, just as a re-cap for the poster:

The text says: "景塔星羅江馬"

(in simplified Chinese that is written: "景塔星罗江马")

But you read it from right-to-left (i.e. 馬江羅星塔景）

馬江 = (name of a town) "Majiang"

羅 = "to collect, gather, catch, capture"

星 = "star(s)"

塔 = "tower"

景 = "scenery, a scene"

So the title of the picture is something like:

"A scene of the Star Collecting Tower in Majiang"