Scott No: -
Serial number: 2021-4
Values in set: 5
Date of issue: March 20, 2021
Denomination: 590 fen
Designer: Wang Huming
Size of stamps:
45 * 40 mm for Value 1
50 * 40 mm for Value 2
28 * 40 mm for Value 3
39 * 40 mm for Value 4
42 * 40 mm for Value 5
Perforation: 12
Sheet composition: 15 (3 Sets)
Sheet Size: 224 * 160 mm
Size of S/S: 220 * 96 mm
Size of S/S stamp: 204 * 35 mm
S/S Perforation: imperf
Printing process: Offset and Engraving
Printing House: Henan Provincial Posts & Telecom Science and Technology Corporation

China Post is scheduled to issue a set of 5 special stamps and 1 souvenir sheet titled Five Bulls on March 20, 2021. The total face value of the full set of stamps is 5.90 yuan, and the souvenir sheet is priced at 6 yuan. The planned circulation is 7.2 million sets for the stamps and 6.3 million pieces for the souvenir sheet. Additionally, one stamp booklet will be issued, priced at 50 yuan, with a planned circulation of 100,000 copies.

The scroll Five Bulls is a famous cattle-painting in Chinese history, currently collected in the Palace Museum. There is no signature or seal of the artist on the scroll, and it is traditionally believed to be the only surviving authentic work by Han Huang of the Tang Dynasty. Han Huang, courtesy name Taichong, was skilled in painting animals, human figures, and genre paintings depicting rural life.

In Five Bulls, five cows with distinct postures are arranged in a side-by-side layout. Each cow is presented as an independent individual while forming a responsive relationship with one another, making it an excellent Tang Dynasty painting with an ingenious composition. Han Huang used corresponding brushwork according to different parts of the cows: he outlined the cows' bodies and bones with bold, solemn, and slightly clumsy lines, depicted the cows' heads with meticulous and precise strokes, and portrayed the fine hairs on the cows' mouths and noses with extremely detailed brushwork. From this, Han Huang's aesthetic pursuit of realism and truth can be seen. In terms of modeling, Han Huang demonstrated his keen observation and superb technical expression. Whether depicting cows facing front, in profile, bowing their heads, or looking back, their body proportions are accurate and the perspective relationships are reasonable. This painting shows that the art of animal painting in China had reached a high level by the Tang Dynasty, and it also provides rare visual materials for the study of farm cattle in the Tang Dynasty.

This set of stamps adopts a diversified format design based on the layout of the five cows in the original painting, while the souvenir sheet uses a large-format size to fully showcase the distinctive features of the five cows with different appearances and postures. The overall design is simple and elegant. The combination of the micro-engraved die-cut perforation technique for the stamps and the non-perforated design for the souvenir sheet reproduces the artistic characteristics of Five Bulls—delicate, subtle, and integrating both form and spirit—on the small stamp surface. This set of stamps was designed by Wang Huming and printed by Henan Post and Telecommunications Printing Factory, using machine-made rice paper as the printing material.