New Year's Picture (Suichao tu 歲朝圖)

Artist's biography 王問臣[明]字正叔,號郯川,嘉靖四十一年(一五六二)進士,仕至河南按察使。書善行篆,畫行寫生之趣《长洲志》、《苏州明贤画像册》 In the 1562 examination record, he was 64th among the 300 who passed the exam. His specialty is the Book of Rites. A large vase stands behind a low dark-gray table, on which are two firecracker jars, a four-lobed red coved box, lobed lidded vessel on a stand, light blue scholar's rock vase that holds two sticks of incense(?) and a ruyi scepter with a bat-shaped head, lotus-petaled rhino horn with an openwork base on a red stand. Behind and at the right of the table is a large composite blue vase with ring handles and ornate tripod legs atop a black stand. Lunettes on the vase are decorated with pictures of flowers, tree branches, and at center a landscape with pine a tree and showing a man crossing a bridge. In the vase are plum sprays and wannianqing萬年青with red berries. In front of the vase is a bundle of firecrackers and a fan-like toy with eyes and ears. Scattered in front and under the table are stalks of a flowering plant, 4 lichee, a large orange, a water caltrop, and a tree branch with blue berries of fruit. At left is a gourd shaped glass jar with long thin neck. Across the top of the painting is a curtain with five vertical panels in different colors, from left to right, blue, red, white, pink, green. Each panel has an interlace design at center. - Firecrackers (baozhu 爆竹) that explode into scattered pieces (sui 碎) combined with a vase refer to "years and years of peace" (sui sui pingan 嵗嵗平安). - A flower vase (ping 瓶) with lichee (lizhi 荔支) may refer to wishes for "peace and good fortune" (pingan jili 平安吉利). A vase (ping 瓶) with flowers from all four seasons (siji 四季) conveys the hidden meaning of peace for all the year (sijipingan 四季平安). - Wannianqing 萬年青 (Rohdea japonica, or jixiangcao 吉祥草) translates as "ten thousand years of green"; green leaves stand for continued growth and happiness; red berries stand for numerous descendants and are auspicious in color. - Lichee (lizhi 荔枝; L: nephelium litchi) are often depicted in fruit and flower paint¬ings. Lichee paired with oranges (jie 桔, a common name for ju 橘), stands as a sort of visual homonym for "great auspicousness & great profit" (daji dali 大吉大利) [For this phrase, see Gao Guopei, ed., A Chinese-English Glossary and Illustration of Antique (Hong Kong: The Woods Publishing Co., 1991), p. 115]. Note; the characters jie and ji are the same rhyme catego¬ry. - Sometimes water caltrops (lingjiao 菱角) are paired with lichee to represent "cunning" and "smart" (lingli 伶俐). - The gourd is popular as a charm symbol to ward off evil spirits and disease because its first character (hulu 葫芦) has the same pronunciation as the word to "protect" or "guard" (hu 护) and also the word for "blessing" (hu 祜). In some dialects, the Chinese word for gourd (hulu 葫芦) sounds the same as fulu (福禄) which means "happiness and rank (as in attaining a high government office)."