Note on a Portrait of Li Jilan (d. 784)

Abstract

Tang Studies 20-21 (2002-03) Note on a Portrait of Li Jilan (d. 784) CAROLYN FORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY A number of documents concerning the lives and legends surrounding Tang women poets have recently come to light.1 This note, in contrast, deals with a minor work which should have been in plain sight, as the relevant catalogue has been extant since 1120. According to the Xuanhe huapu Jlffnillfff, Song Huizong Hfc 7H (r.1101-1126) held seventy-six paintings by Zhou Wenju JH>t£f=[ (lOth-c.) in his art collection,2 one of which was a portrait of the Tang Daoist poet Li Jilan ^Epjjt], who was executed in 784 for treason.3 Although art historians of the Ming and Qing dynasties were aware of its existence, present day art historians have not paid much attention to this lost portrait.4 Literary historians, past 1 These documents, which supposedly come from Dunhuang, deal with the treason poem for which L i Jilan was sentenced to death as well as the lost tenth-century poetry collection Yaochi xinji ^£jfeS?H, which consists wholly of poems by Tang women. These potential recoveries are analyzed in detail in my doctoral thesis, "The Textual Transmission of Poems Attributed to Tang Women" (University of Oxford, 2004). 2 See the anonymous work in 20 juan, Xuanhe huapu, 7.2a. Some of the paintings by Zhou Wenju listed in this catalog are still extant, for example, "Watching the Chess Match through Doubled Curtains," in the National Palace Museum, Taibei. 3 For a brief description of L i Jilan, see Gao Zhongwu H f ^ i S , in Zhongxing jianqi ji tpMf^^^, Tangren xuan Tangshi xinbian JlfAMJSf##rlii/ ec *- ^ u Xuancong ifiWM (Xi'an: Shaanxi renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), 506. For an account of her execution, see Zhao Yuanyi $ljt—, Fengtian lu ^ ; ^ ; i f : (Xuxiu SKQS), 1.10b. 4 The relevant catalogues will be cited in detail below. Osvald Siren describes some of Zhou Wenju's extant paintings, such as " A Child Among RoseMallows " and "Ladies with Children on a Terrace," in A History of Early Chinese 151 Ford: Note on a Portrait of Li Jilan and present, were certainly unaware of it.5 This portrait deserves some brief attention because, had it survived, it would be our only early portrait of a Tang woman poet. Guo Ruoxu ffl^EfMg (ca. 1020-1075) wrote one of the records6 upon which the Xuanhe huapu is based. In a section on portraiture he describes Zhou Wenju as a native of Jurong ' n j ^ (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu) who served in the court of the Southern Tang ruler Li Yu ^ ; j g (r. 961-975) as a painter in attendance. Wenju was adept at painting people, horses, trees, and landscapes. He particularly excelled at painting gentlewomen. For the most part Wenju's style was similar to Zhou Fang's JH55 (730-800), but he altered it and made it more delicately beautiful. There are pictures of the royal family on a spring outing, women beating clothes and ironing silk etc., which Guo noted as extant at the time of writing, but he did not mention a portrait of Li Jilan. The treasures of the Painting, vol. 1: From the Han to the Beginning of the Sung Period (London: Medici Society, 1933) 115-16, and plates 81-82. He does not, however, discuss Zhou Wenju's lost works. I refer to the portrait as lost because no Qing dynasty catalogue refers to it as extant and modern scholars of Chinese paintings such as Suzuki Kei ip/fcffc and Duan Shuan ISUS: et al. have yet to locate any copies. See Chugoku kaiga sogo zuroku ^MWllt&iiMfsk, 9 vols. (Tokyo: Tokyo University , 1982-2000), and Zhongguo gudai shuhua tumu suoyin ^ S S f ^ t f ^ B I B ^ ? ! (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2001). I am grateful to my colleague Fongyee Walker, Cambridge University, for checking the last four volumes of Chugoku kaiga sogo zuroku for me. 5 Even the most detailed scholarly accounts of her life and work make no mention of such a portrait. See, for example, Chen Wenhua $$C0, Tang nushiren ji sanzhong Hr&j^f A K l H f l t (Shanghai: Shanghai guji...