Chen Yifei' s artistic vision has always been based on his contemplative literal and symbolic sojourn between two fundamentally different cultures. In this sense, his work is fundamentally about the intersection and interaction between China and the West. Chen' s personal biography and his art was marked by frequent Sino-U.S. cultural exchange, and as an undeniable cultural reality underlying his lifetime of experience, his work perfectly embodies China' s own distinct engagement with the West over the course of the 20th century. Chen's Water Villages Series of Western style realist paintings from the early 1980s opened a window for Western viewers to appreciate the serenely poetic culture and scenery of the East. In the late 1980s, Chen shifted the focus of his portraits from Western musicians to Chinese women in traditional attire. With a shiny black background that resembles the theatrical stage, shifts his focus from revealing the beauty inherent to the contemporary era. Instead, as with his Old Dream on the Sea Series, conceived in the 1990s, he embraces a powerful and poetic nostalgia, depicting the setting, characters,and the unique cultural scene of Shanghai in the Republican era. As such, Chen was seeking to recover and symbolically recreate Shanghai's important historic and cultural contributions from a nearly forgotten era.

As early as in 1845 and following China's defeat in the Opium War, foreign settlements were being established in Shanghai, turning it into a multicultural port and presenting this Paris of the East with unprecedented economic prospects. Into the 1920s, Shanghai's economic strength fueled concurrent and rapid developments in education and culture. The metropolis' tertiary education was on a par with that of Japan and was considered among the world's best. Among its institutions, St. John's University was renowned as the Harvard of the East. The Jiao Tong University, Tongji University, Aurora University and University of Shanghai were established, mirroring the enlightenment-based educational philosophy of foreign powers such as the U.S., Germany and France. At the same time, these universities facilitated Sino-Western cultural exchanges and laid a solid educational and cultural foundation for old Shanghai and its distinct culture. Apart from the universities, prominent high schools run by the churches and local groups also produced such well-known alumni as the Soong sisters and Eileen Chang. The introduction of Western culture and education had the indirect effect of promoting the educational level of Chinese women at the time and broadening their worlds. As a result, women's conventional gender roles, lifestyles as well as the values attributed to Chinese women went through a significant and historically unprecedented paradigm shift.
Chen Yifei's interest in the cultural exchange between China and the West goes far beyond the depiction of Chinese water landscape, which epitomizes the Orient, through the Western medium of oil, classical realist techniques and aesthetics. What he aspired to with his Old Dream on the Sea Series was to reflect on the artistic notion of cultural exchange. He has personified a city (Shanghai) and an era (the 1920s-30s). In the light of this, his figures are not just character studies or imagined portraits, but are meant to convey the ethos, city, and culture of a particular era. Chen insisted on using realist techniques in order to emphatically illicit the psyche and emotions of his figures and subsequently engage and move his audience. In doing so, he sought to transport the contemporary viewer back to old Shanghai in the 1920s-30s and to re-examine its humanistic spirit.

In preparation for his Old Dream on the Sea Series, Chen went everywhere to search for image materials. Making his way into the alleys of Shanghai, in grief for the gradual loss of old Shanghai, he even sought to document in film the disappearing city, footage which were subsequently morphed into his autobiographical film, Old Dream on the Sea: A documentary of the life of Chen Yifei. Originally purchased from Marlborough Gallery in London, Old Dream on the Sea: Two Beauties (Lot 1023) offers a significant technical and thematic departure from Chen' s preceding Musicians paintings. Where Chen had frequently employed a deliberately stage like lighting environment, here, Chen offers instead a nostalgic, romantic ambience through the depiction of dim light, which reminds viewers of the streetlamps in the dark alleys of Shanghai, or the flickering interior candles of a private home, while also recreating the impressionistic environment of Shanghai in the 1920s and '30s. The complementary composition of demure women set against a dimly lit backdrop gives the painting a sentimental feeling of intimacy. The two Chinese women, both dressed in the traditional attire originating from the Han Dynasty, which comprises an upper garment called Kua and a long skirt, and adorned with exquisite silk sashes, are holding fans with a calm, relaxed composure. The standing woman, gracefully leaning against the chair, head lowered slightly, eyes averted from the audience, radiates a subtle feminine grace; the seated woman before her, wearing a natural smile and an expression of quiet resolution, are looking directly at the audience with considerable repose and self-assurance. The Chinese women in Chen's portrayal seem carefree, collected and confident but without losing the gentle kindness of the ideal womanhood favoured by traditional Confucian teachings. On the one hand, the subtlety of Oriental culture is symbolized by the ancient Chinese beauty appearing in the form of the standing woman. On the other hand, a sense of strength generated by the cultural clash of East and West, where the old is dismantled and the new established, is conveyed by the sitting woman and her powerfully direct gaze.

Chen's meticulous observation of the female psyche harkens back to Neo-classicism and the 19th century British pre-Raphaelite painter, John William Waterhouse. Waterhouse displayed his remarkable talents in his depiction of Greek legends and British women of his era. With an emphasis on delicate features, their tall and slim stature, and elegant dress, Waterhouse's women oozed with a unique feminine charm in every gesture and body movement. Nevertheless, they also underlie the melancholy of such women who were acutely aware of their disempowered position a highly patriarchal society. The complex inner conflict of women is asserted in Waterhouse's paintings as a reflection of civilization, and the women he portrayed thus became a symbol of the patriarchal British society in the nineteenth century. In much the same way, the women in Chen's Old Dream on the Sea series can be viewed as an iconic symbol of Shanghai in the 1930s. An era rich in material detail, dramatic appeal and creativity across all fields are encapsulated in Chen's works, with the female embodying this idealized dreamscape. Lingering between dream and reality, contemporary viewers are drawn into a kind of visual travelogue across time and space, one that both idealizes and celebrates the spirit of an era long-forgotten, in an effort to bring its essence back into our own. It is not hard for us to understand, in the light of Old Dream on the Sea: Two Beauties, that Chen's "old dream " does not simply carry his nostalgic memories of the colourful, avant-garde old Shanghai, but also a continuation of his quest for beauty, his obsession with romantic poeticism, his yearning for eternity, his adherence to Classical Realism, and most importantly, an in-depth investigation into Eastern and Western cultures. Through the portrayal of female figures who personify this long-gone dynamic, East-meet-West Shanghaiese world, Chen presented to us a lateral reflection of the paradigm shift in values which occurred after the New Culture Movement. It is not an exaggeration to conclude that the women in Chen's portrayal, full of philosophical thoughts and symbolic import, are the pinnacle of his oil painting art.