Rain on Laurel Blossoms

Inscription: Artist’s inscription and signature (12 columns in semi-cursive script)

Rain on the laurel blossoms –
I lean on the balustrade as Spring ends.
I am a traveler – north, south, east, west;
When will I get to see them again?
Jade colors offset by a brown collar,
How can they last through the evening cold?
So many trees here in this garden;
It is hard to put them in a poem.

[Translation by Jonathan Chaves in Tseng Yu-ho Ecke, Poetry on the Wind: The Art of Chinese Folding Fans from the Ming and Chʻing Dynasties. Honolulu: Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1981, cat. no. 6, p. 13]

[Signed] Ranxian

月桂花上雨，春歸一凴闌。
東西南北客，更得幾囘看。
紅衿映玉色，薄暮無乃寒。
目中如許樹，獨覺賦詩難。[1]

髯仙


Artist's seal

Xu shi Ziren 徐氏子仁


Collectors' seals

Gu Luofu 顧洛阜 (John M. Crawford, Jr., 1913‒1988)
Hanguang Ge 漢光閣

Unidentified
Jizi suocang 季子所藏
Ri gao shu cang ji 日高書藏記

Illegible: 1


[1] The poem is a transcription of Chen Yuyi’s 陳與義 (1090‒1138) “Yuzhong guan Bingzhong jia yuegui 雨中觀秉仲家月桂” (Watching laurel blossoms at Bingzhong’s residence in the rain) with variants of a few characters.

John M. Crawford Jr. American, New York (by 1971–d. 1988; bequeathed to MMA)

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

Shih Shou-ch'ien, Maxwell K. Hearn, and Alfreda Murck. The John M. Crawford, Jr., Collection of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Checklist. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984, p. 30, cat. no. 74.