The late Yuan Yunfu, a well-established artist and former professor of Tsinghua University's arts and design academy, invested a lot of time depicting the elegance of lotus flowers in his later years. He once said that, "Every moment in the life of a lotus, from sprouting, budding, fully blooming to withering, is exuberant with a unique sense of beauty."

On Monday, Yuan's family donated Enduring Fragrance, a colorful ink painting which shows several lotuses in full blossom, to the Tsinghua University Art Museum in Beijing, where an exhibition that hails Yuan's lifelong creativity is currently underway.

The exhibition, which runs until Oct 7, is titled Glory and displays more than 120 of Yuan's paintings, including the donated piece, marking his devotion to China's decorative art.

An album dedicated to Yuan's great sense of color, The Beauty of Yuan Yunfu's Art, was also released by the university's publishing house.