Branch of blossoming plum

Inscription: Artist’s inscription and signature (15 columns in semi-cursive script)

I awake in the cold dawn.
A pale fragment of the moon still hangs in the sky.
A cool fragrance is wafted along the bamboo path.
Faint shadows fall on the shoulders of the chanter.
Side by side [bamboo and plum] keep each other good company.
Both are pure and to be pitied.
Who will praise their beautiful color?
Those in the mansion only appreciate morning sleep.

Shixue Jushi’s [Xu Zonghao] copy of Wang Chaolin’s [Wang Shishen 汪士慎, 1686–1759] work. It is not far from the old master’s. On the Duanyang Festival [on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month] of the yiyou year (1945).

[Translation by Keita Itoh and Lawrence Wu with Jean Schmitt and Caron Smith in Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, ed., Later Chinese Painting and Calligraphy: 1800-1950, Volume I: Text, New York: Random House, 1986, p. 167. Modified. The Romanization of Chinese characters has been changed from the Wade-Giles system to the pinyin system.]

獨自曉寒起，月殘猶在天。
冷香浮竹徑，疏影落吟肩。
相對成良晤，同清亦可憐。
誰誇好顔色，高閣困朝眠。

石雪居士臨汪巢林本，似去古人未遠也。乙酉端陽。


Artist’s seals

Changliu tiandi jian 長留天地間
Shixue 石雪
Xu Zonghao yin 徐宗浩印


Collector’s seal

An Siyuan 安思遠 (Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, 1929–2014)
An Siyuan 安思遠

Robert H. Ellsworth Chinese, New York (until 1986; donated to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Noble Virtues: Nature as Symbol in Chinese Art," September 10, 2022–January 29, 2023.