Here, the legendary "demon queller" Zhong Kui leads his sister to her new home accompanied by an escort of demons performing feats of martial prowess. The comic climax to this spectacle is Zhong Kui himself—stone drunk and propped atop a small donkey by three retainers while his sister sits helplessly astride a recalcitrant water buffalo. The painting illustrates a rebus: "marrying off one's sister" (jia mei) is a pun for "subjugating demons."
Yan Geng may have derived inspiration from actual New Year's processions, during which costumed figures impersonating Zhong Kui and his band of demons circulated through neighborhoods and banished evil in return for payment. Paintings on this subject clearly enjoyed widespread appeal, perhaps serving as auspicious gifts for the New Year.
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Once drunk, old Kui’s beards bristle like spears. With fresh makeup, his sister’s face appears black. Where are her buffalo mount and entourage going? Those with bare feet are mostly mere skeletons. As the emperor of the Kaiyuan reign era [713–741] ignored state affairs, It depended on the heroic ghost [Zhong Kui] to straighten up the court. Yan Geng must be fond of things mysterious and strange; Even the ugly and grotesque creatures left their images behind.
Yan Cungeng [Yan Geng] lived in the Southern Song dynasty [1127–1279], whose paintings are rarely seen. This one depicts the scholar Zhong’s excursion in a grotesque, unearthly manner, fully capturing the features of the demons. Demons, however, are like shadows, amorphous in their movements. I wonder how Cungeng managed to portray them so convincingly. On the 26th of the first lunar month of the gengyin year in the Chenghua reign era [February 26, 1470] Wu Kuan from Changzhou [Suzhou][1] [seals]: Wu Kuan, Yuanbo
An Guo 安國 (1481–1534) Guipo An Guo shangjian 桂坡安國賞鑑
Cheng Xun 成勲 (18th c.) Cheng Xun 成勲 Yiting 儀庭
Unidentified Jiwo Xuan 寄我軒 Jiwo Xuan zhencang shuhua yin 寄我軒珍藏書畫印 Lianqiao jianshang 蓮樵鋻賞 Sha Ji shijia 沙濟世家
[1] Translations from department records.
[sale, Christie's, New York , Important Classical Chinese Paintings; May 31, 1990, lot 10, to MMA]
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Traditional Scholarly Values at the End of the Qing Dynasty: The Collection of Weng Tonghe (1830–1904)," June 30–January 3, 1999.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "A Millennium of Chinese Painting: Masterpieces from the Permanent Collection," September 8, 2001–January 13, 2002.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Douglas Dillon Legacy: Chinese Painting for the Metropolitan Museum," March 12–August 8, 2004.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Secular and Sacred: Scholars, Deities, and Immortals in Chinese Art," September 10, 2005–January 8, 2006.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty," September 28, 2010–January 2, 2011.
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago. "Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture," February 13, 2014–June 15, 2014.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting," October 29, 2016–August 6, 2017.
Cahill, James. An Index of Early Chinese Painters and Paintings: T'ang, Sung, and Yüan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
Fong, Wen C. Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, 8th–14th Century. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992, pp. 368–72, pls. 82a–c.
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