Nymph of the Luo

This painting depicts the Nymph of the Luo River, a mythical river goddess who was celebrated in a famous prose-poem by the poet and prince Cao Zhi (192–232 CE.) Cao’s influential early poem established the Nymph as a subject of erotic preoccupation in the Chinese literary imagination, a position further solidified by a seminal early painting of the subject by the pioneering painter Gu Kaizhi (c. 344–406). Celebrations of the Nymph of the Luo River and the famous poem and painting that immortalized her subsequently became common in Chinese culture. The painter Yu Ming’s friend and frequent collaborator Xu Zonghao 徐宗浩 (1880–1957), transcribed Cao’s lengthy poem in the upper register of the hanging scroll.

Yu Ming was born in Wuxing and spent much of his career in Shanghai and Beijing. Though largely aligned with traditionalist groups that advocated the continued development of traditions of classical Chinese painting, Yu was also trained in European watercolor techniques.: According to Xu Zonghao’s inscription, this painting is a copy of an original image of the Nymph of the Luo River by the great Yuan dynasty painter Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322), and as such it reflects the interest in classical Chinese paintings that animated many of Yu’s patrons in Beijing and Shanghai.