APPENDIX

THREE EXTANT VERSIONS OF WHITE LOTUS SOCIETY PICTURE

This appendix concerns issues derived from three important copied versions of Li Gonglin’s White Lotus Society Picture in Chinese muse- ums: the Liaoning Provincial Museum, the Nanjing Museum, and the Shanghai Museum. The Liaoning painting was copied by Li’s nephew Zhang Ji. Both the Nanjing and Shanghai paintings are mounted with a transcription of Li Chongyuan’s Record of Lotus Society Picture. This scenario requires further investigation into the original format of the particular painting created in 1081 for Li Chongyuan. I rst consider the styles and dating of these three works, then argue that even though the Shanghai painting is dated earlier, the Nanjing painting preserves Li Gonglin’s 1081 composition and iconography. In analyzing these three paintings and two Records of Lotus Society Picture by Li Chongyuan and Le Desu I argue that over three decades of depicting this topic Li Gonglin followed a consistent iconography. This indicates that the meaning and representation of the White Lotus Society had been rmly rooted during Li’s formative years in the Longmian Mountains, and that he altered only the format and style in successive depictions of this subject.

The Nanjing Hanging Scroll Version

The Nanjing version (92 × 53.8 cm) is the most widely published among three extant hanging scroll versions of White Lotus Society Picture (Fig. 10).1 Mounted above the painting is a transcription of Li

1 Two additional versions were formerly in the C.C. Wang collection, New York, and the National Palace Museum, Taipei, respectively. The C.C. Wang version is signed with Qiu Ying’s signature, and according to Stephen Little, it is one of Qiu Ying’s early works (See Stephen Little, “The Demon Queller and the Art of Qiu Ying,” Artibus Asiae, vol. 46 1/2 [1985], pp. 44; This author has not personally examined this painting). The Taipei version is signed with both Wen Zhengming and Qiu Ying’s names, but it is a much later copy based on the version on which the two Ming painters collaborated. 290 appendix

Chongyuan’s Record of Lotus Society Picture. While the painting has long been considered by Chinese scholars as a Southern Song pastiche, it is painted on the dubious “Song” surface of two joined pieces of silk of equal width, apparently darkened with dye, perhaps purposely dam- aged, then repaired.2 Mounted above the painting are two darkened but undamaged narrow silk strips, one horizontal and the other vertical, featuring an imitation of the Northern Song Emperor Huizong’s 徽宗 (r. 1101–1125) famous shoujin 瘦金 (“slender gold”)-style calligraphy: “Li Gonglin Lianshe tu 李公麟蓮社圖 (Li Gonglin, Lotus Society Picture)” (Fig. 10L), and three forged collector’s seals of Huizong: a pictograph of double dragons, a “Xuanhe 宣和,” and a “Zhenghe 政和” (Figs. 10O, 10P).3 Quite obviously the Nanjing painter intended to create a “Song” painting using all possible physical characteristics, and by embel- lishing the mounting with spurious “Huizong” writing and seals, the painter and/or mounter meant to “prove” that the painting had been

For documentation of the Taipei version, see Midian zhulin 祕殿珠林 (1744, Taipei National Palace Museum reprint, 1971), p. 263. 2 This painting has been published as a Southern Song pastiche in at least two Chinese publications: Nanjing Bowuyuan canghua ji 南京博物院藏畫集 (Shanghai: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1981), pl. 5; and Zhongguo meishu quanji, huihuabian, Song 中國美術 全集，繪畫編、宋 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1988), vol. 1, pl. 33. 3 Though Chinese mounters commonly preserved valuable evidence or famous personages’ writings from older mountings and incorporated them into new mount- ings, such as on A Pheasant and Sparrows by Dry Jujube Shrubs, attributed to Huang Jucai 黃居寀 (b. 933–after 993), in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, which bears a vertical calligraphy by Emperor Huizong authenticating the work. For Chang Lin- sheng’s discussion of the mounting of this painting, see “The National Palace Museum: A History of the Collection,” in Fong Wen and James C.Y. Watt, eds., Possessing the Past: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei (New York and Taipei: Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Palace Museum, 1996), p. 5. For a good example of Huizong’s calligraphy, see his Qianzi wen 千字文 (Thousand-character Essay) for Tong Guan 童貫 in the Shanghai Museum (reproduced in asaka shiritsu bijutsukan z , Shanhai hakubutsukan z Chgoku shoga meihin zuroku 大阪市立美術館藏上海博物館藏中 國書畫名品圖錄, Osaka: asaka shiritsu bijutsukan, 1994, cat. no. 14). The authentic “double-dragon” pictographic seal, the “Xuanhe,” and the “Zhenghe” seals appear together on other extant works. The rst and second are usually together at the begin- ning, and the third at the end of the work. For an example, see impressions of these three seals on a Tang-dynasty traced copy of Wang Xizhi’s 王羲之 Xingrangtie 行穰帖 (reproduced in Nakata Yjir and Fu Shen, eds., abei shuz Chgoku h sho meiseki sh 歐米收藏中國法書名蹟集 [Masterpieces of Chinese Calligraphy in American and European Collections], vol. 1 [Tokyo: Ch k ron-sha, 1981], pl. 2). The emperor’s writing and his seals on the Nanjing version, when compared with extant works known to be by Huizong, are obvious forgeries of poor quality.