Currently not on view
Ritual to Pray for Good Harvest (Xingrang tie 行穰帖),
undated
Wang Xizhi 王羲之, 303–361
Chinese
Eastern Jin dynasty, 317–420 CE
1998-140
Wang Xizhi was the most influential calligrapher in Chinese history, and his dynamic style helped to establish calligraphy as the supreme art of personal expression. The calligraphy of his personal letters was perceived as an embodied distillation of his inner most thoughts and feelings. Ritual to Pray for Good Harvest is a fragment of one of his letters preserved in the form of a Tang dynasty tracing copy. Unlike public writing for monumental stelae, official documents, and sacred texts, Wang’s letters were written in cursive or running scripts, forms of calligraphy in which characters are abbreviated and strokes linked in continuous motions of the brush. Defying accurate transcription and translation and filled with now obscure references, many of Wang’s letters, like this one, are no longer fully intelligible.
More About This Object
Information
Title
Ritual to Pray for Good Harvest (Xingrang tie 行穰帖)
Dates
undated
Maker
Medium
Handscroll; ink on ying huang paper
Dimensions
Calligraphy (letter proper): 24.4 x 8.9 cm. (9 5/8 x 3 1/2 in.)
Calligraphy: 30 x 372 cm. (11 13/16 x 146 7/16 in.)
Mount: h. 29.8 cm. (11 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Bequest of John B. Elliott, Class of 1951
Object Number
1998-140
Place Made
Asia, China
Signatures
unsigned
Inscription
Labels preceding the letter:
Huizong 徽宗 (Song emp., r. 1100–26) titleslip in gold calligraphy (jinshu 金書) on silk
王羲之行穰帖
Dong Qichang 董其昌 (1555–1636) titleslip
王右軍行穰帖
Qianlong emperor 乾隆 (r. 1736–95) appreciation (tici 題辭)
龍跳天門，虎臥鳳閣。
鈐：“乾隆御筆”朱文方印
"A dragon leaping at the Gate of Heaven, a tiger crouching at the Phoenix Tower"
[Well-known expression that was originally used by Liang dynasty Emperor Wu (r. 502-549) to describe the excellence of Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy].
Qianlong emperor 乾隆 titleslip:
王羲之行穰帖真蹟 神品內府秘寶
鈐：“乾隆宸翰”朱文方印
Colophons and inscriptions: Tung Ch'i-ch'ang, undated transcription of the text of the letter, undated colophon, two additional colophons dated 1604 and 1609
Sun Ch'eng-tse (1592-1676), undated
Ch'ien-lung emperor, one undated inscription, two colophons dated 1748
Chang Ta-ch'ien (1899-1983), colophon noting that he acquired the scroll in 1957
Marks/Labels/Seals
Nine characters in ink on label adhered to edge of rolled scroll 御題晉王右軍行穰帖
Culture
Period
Materials
Subject
–1998 John B. Elliott (Princeton, NJ), by bequest to the Princeton University Art Museum, 1998.
- Jill Guthrie, ed., In celebration: works of art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 1997)., cat. no. 65
-
"The checklist of the John B. Elliott Bequest," Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 61 (2002): p. 49-99.
, p. 75 - Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 263 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 315
- Stephen Little, ed., 17th-century Chinese Paintings from the Tsao Family Collection (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016)., fig. 7.1, p. 191 (illus.)
