photo: Masatsugu Nokubo
Currently not on view
Eighteen Scholars of the Tang Dynasty (Shiba xueshi tu 十八學士圖),
1593
Wang Shanggong 王上宮, 16th century
Chinese
Ming dynasty, 1368–1644
2006-23
The Eighteen Scholars are a renowned historical group of advisors who had served the Tang emperor Taizong (reigned 626–49) before he assumed the imperial seat. Assisted by young attendants, the scholars are shown pursuing various cultivated pursuits, including chess, calligraphy, and painting, while also eating and humorously getting drunk. The scroll ends with a scene of scholars playing chess, an activity in which the young emperor Taizong is known to have joined them. This long handscroll is delineated in a baimiao (fine-line) brush-painting technique, which by the sixteenth century had become so refined that the gossamer ink lines impart a ghostly or supernatural effect.
Information
Title
Eighteen Scholars of the Tang Dynasty (Shiba xueshi tu 十八學士圖)
Dates
1593
Maker
Medium
Handscroll; ink on paper
Dimensions
Painting: 30.9 x 391.5 cm. (12 3/16 x 154 1/8 in.)
Colophon (left): 31 x 116 cm. (12 3/16 x 45 11/16 in.)
Colophon (far left): 35.5 x 109.4 cm. (14 x 43 1/16 in.)
Mount: h. 37.4 cm. (14 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Shau-wai and Marie Lam in honor of Wen C. Fong, Class of 1951 and Graduate School Class of 1958, and Constance Tang Fong
Object Number
2006-23
Place Made
Asia, China
Signatures
signed
Inscription
Artist inscription:
On a spring day of the guisi cyclical year of the Wanli reign, painted by Longru of Wujun
(Wanli guisi chun ri Wujun Longru xie 萬曆癸巳春日吳郡龍如寫)
Marks/Labels/Seals
Characters in ink on label adhered to edge of rolled scroll
Sticker on top end: CHRISTIE'S / 58 / MAR 95
Written on other end: #176
Seals:
Artist's - (2)
"Yunzhong jun" 雲中君, square relief
"Wang Shanggong yin" 王上宮印, square relief
Collectors' - (6)
Yu Wenbao (3)
Wang Jiqian (C. C. Wang) (1) [seal stamped at a viewing while scroll was in the Lam Collection]
TBD (2)
Culture
Period
Materials
–1995 Christie’s auction (New York, NY), sold to Shau-wai and Marie Lam (Summit, NJ), 1995
1995–2006 Shau-wai and Marie Lam (Summit, NJ), by gift to the Princeton University Art Museum, 2006.
1995–2006 Shau-wai and Marie Lam (Summit, NJ), by gift to the Princeton University Art Museum, 2006.
