Early Autumn after Qian Xuan

Yu Jingzhi is one of the best-known female artists to practice traditional Chinese painting in the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Hangzhou, she became familiar with the highly descriptive local tradition of academic painting based on the court art of the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279). She moved to New York in 1936, and held several one-person shows in New York, Boston, and Chicago through the 1960s. This work is a meticulous monochrome copy of Early Autumn, a handscroll in the Detroit Institute of Arts that bears a signature of the early Yuan (1279–1368) master Qian Xuan (ca. 1235–before 1307). Depicting an autumnal lotus pond abuzz with lively inhabitants, the painting juxtaposes life and decay to convey the transient nature of all living things. Zhang Daqian wrote a frontispiece in his striking calligraphy. Lin Yutang contributed a colophon that reads:

[Yu] Jingzhi, a female scholar and artist, is descended from a highly cultured family. Though living in the United States for many years, she has never abandoned her former practice. She gave me her copy of Shunju's [Qian Xuan's] painting. It truly captures the feeling that insects, plants, and other myriad creatures all live their lives to the full, even though they are ephemerae between heaven and earth just like me. In the early summer of the yisi year [1965], Lin Yutang inscribed.

(trans. by Shi-yee Liu)

Zhang Daqian (1899–1983)
Frontispiece

Pure Harmony on the Jade Pond

"Elder sister" [Yu] Jingzhi's copy of Qian Shunju's [Qian Xuan, ca. 1235–before 1307] painting is very close to the original. Respectfully inscribed by her junior, Daqian, Zhang Yuan

Lin's colophon reads:

[Yu] Jingzhi, a female scholar and artist, is descended from a highly cultured family. Though living in America for many years, she has never abandoned her former practice. She gave me her copy of [Qian Xuan's] painting. It truly captures the feeling that insects, plants, and other myriad creatures all live their lives to the full, even thought they are ephemerae between heaven and earth just like me.

(trans. Shi-yee Liu)