In 1674, Wang Hui painted an album of twelve leaves for his teacher Wang Shimin. Though already in his forties when he made the album, Wang Hui still attempted to impress his mentor with his range and technical facility. Three years later, Wang Shimin made his own album in response, painted in a broader style suited to his failing vision. Portions of the two original albums were lost over the centuries, and a collector combined the surviving ten leaves by Wang Hui and two by Wang Shimin in the album on view here—a touching artifact of the unique bond between a teacher and his student.

Wang Hui (1632–1717)
Colophon
Qing dynasty (1644–1911), dated 1714

Forty years after he painted this album for his teacher Wang Shimin, Wang Hui saw it again in the home of Wang Shimin’s grandson. He recorded his feelings in this colophon:

In 1674, when master Fengchang [Wang Shimin] asked me to do this album, he was eighty-three sui [eighty-two years old]. That was forty years ago; now I am eighty-three. The master’s grandson Qiuya has taken this out to show me. Examining again my earlier inscriptions done so many years ago I am overwhelmed with sadness and feel that the bonds of brush and ink that connect me with three generations of the Wang family cannot have been an accident.
—Translation by Shi-yee Liu