During the nineteenth century, the scholar-official Ruan Yuan towered over the cultural life of the city of Yangzhou. A deeply proud Yangzhou native, Ruan Yuan sponsored major building and publishing projects that valorized his home city, becoming, for many people of his day, the face of Yangzhou. This album depicts ten famous sites in Yangzhou associated with Ruan Yuan, from his family temples to historical sites that he patronized. Equal parts a visual biography of a man and a portrait of a place, this unusual album shows the creative potential of the format, in which the civic and the personal can be interwoven into a single, multiphase story.
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Artwork Details
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清 汪鋆 阮元遺事十景圖 冊
Title:Ten Sites Associated with Ruan Yuan
Artist:Wang Jun (Chinese, 1816–after 1883)
Period:Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
Date:dated 1883
Culture:China
Medium:Album of ten paintings; ink and color on paper
Dimensions:Image (each): 10 3/4 in. × 13 in. (27.3 × 33 cm) Mat (each): 18 × 18 in. (45.7 × 45.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Julia and John Curtis, 2015
Accession Number:2015.784.10a–j
Inscription: Artist’s inscriptions and signature[1]
Leaf A (4 columns in clerical script and 6 columns in semi-cursive script):
Master Ruan’s Pavilion against lake sparkles and mountain colors
The Pavilion is to the right of the family temple in the Daoqiao District, constructed under Master Wenda’s (Ruan Yuan, 1764–1849) own design during the Jiaqing reign (1796–1820). It measures over four zhang [about 46 feet] with altogether nine windows on its four sides; each window has a poetic tribute to it. In the fresh air after rain, hills across the river and the gleaming lake can be seen near and far in an impressive array. That was why I inscribed these seven characters.
The Wenxuan Tower of Prince Zhaoming [of the Liang dynasty, Xiao Tong, 501–531] is not in Yangzhou. What Yangzhou actually has is only the tower where Cao Xian (active ca. 599–638) and Li Shan (630–689) composed their commentaries on the Wen xuan (Selections of refined literature). Master Wenda not only had a tower constructed to the west of his family temple in the Wenxuan Tower Lane exclusively for the storage of his books, but also composed an essay on it. Governor-general Tie Yeting (Tie Bao, 1752–1824) inscribed the name plaque and Prefect Yi Moqing (Yi Bingshou, 1754–1815) wrote the calligraphic couplet [for the entrance gate].
The preface to the “Poems on the Ten-thousand Willows Hall by the North Lake of Yangzhou” reads, “Forty li from the North Lake in my hometown and by the Chi’an Lake eight li to the east of the Sengdu Bridge is the Thatched Cottage by Lake Pearl. It was once flooded by the overflow of Lake Hong. In the spring of the 19th year of the Daoguang reign (1839), I embanked five hundred mu (about 82 acres) of low land and planted twenty thousand Jiangzhou willows throughout the place. Since there were already hundreds of old willows on our property from earlier times, I inscribed “Hall of Ten Thousand Willows” on the front gate. I could then practice farming and enjoy fish-watching back on my ancestral land far from worldly cities. Below are eight poems on the site to record its beauty.”
Mr. Xu Linmen’s new home on the west slope of Mt. Kang was formerly Provincial Administration Commissioner Jiang Heting’s (Jiang Chun, 1720−1789) residence. The Master [Ruan Yuan] started frequenting it at age ten. In the spring of the guimao year (1843) when the Fushou Garden was destroyed, he rented this place to live.
徐林門新第在康山西麓，為江鶴亭方伯舊宅，公自十嵗外即常遊此。以癸卯春福壽庭覆，乃賃居焉。
Leaf E (15 columns in semi-cursive script):
In the winter of the tenth year of the Jiaqing reign (1805) when the funeral for the Master [Ruan Yuan’s father Chengxin, 1734−1805] was held, he was granted a space on the side of the ancestral cemetery at Leitang in the northern part of Yangzhou. The Master [Ruan Yuan] lived in mourning in a cottage by the tomb. In the sixth month of the following year, he acquired the stele that commemorated the renovation of the Song-dynasty Dragon King Temple at Leitang during the Dade reign (1297−1307) of the Yuan dynasty. He then moved the stele into the cottage and worshiped the Dragon King in the front hall, with a young monk stationed there as guard. Consequently he adopted “Master of the Leitang Retreat” as his studio name. Later he had a three-story tower built behind the side chambers, for which Mr. Jiao Litang (Jiao Xun, 1763−1820) inscribed the name “Master Ruan’s Pavilion.” He once had the portraits of four generations of his forebears carved in stone and housed them inside it to pay homage. He also wrote an essay to record the events.
In the ninth year of the Jiaqing reign (1804) the Master [Ruan Yuan] carried out his father’s admonition to build the family temple in the Xingren Community behind the Wenxuan Tower in the older part of Yangzhou. There he planted two gingko trees with his own hands. After seventy-some years, they have flourished to be the best of its kind as people had hoped. In the guichou year of the Xianfeng reign (1853) when the city was taken by the rebels from Guangdong, both the temple and the trees remained intact. I therefore thought of the line, “it must have been looked after by the divine,” in Du Fu’s (712–770) poem, which may well be applied to these trees.
For his family temple in the Xingren Community, the Master composed the text for the stele himself. The calligrapher was Quantang, Gao Kai (1769–1839).[2]
興仁里家廟，公自撰碑文，書者則泉唐高塏也。
Leaf H (20 columns in semi-cursive script):
In the bingchen year of the Jiaqing reign (1796), the Master came to Zhejiang as Provincial Education Commissioner. During the years, he selected scholars in the classics in the province to study at the Academy for Researching the Classics (Gujing Jingshe) that he established on the slope of the Gushan Isle in the West Lake. In it the ancient masters Xu Shuzhong (Xu Shen, 1st–2nd c.) and Zheng Kangcheng (Zheng Xuan, 127–200) were worshiped and Minister of Justice Wang Shu’an (Wang Chang, 1725–1806) and Circuit Intendant Sun Boyuan (Sun Xingyan, 1753–1818) were recruited at different times to preside over the lectures. Consequently, numerous committed scholars in Zhejiang turned to the study of the classics and refused to limit themselves to the fields of learning that were popular at the time, which led to the increase of brilliant scholars.
The preface to the “Poems on the Aiwu Thatched Cottage at the Daoqiao Villa” reads, “In my childhood, although the family house was humble, the roof was tiled. I came to the Daoqiao District at age ten and immediately loved thatched cottages. When on the 20th of the first month of the guimao year (1843), my 80th birthday, I came to the Daoqiao Villa to escape the mundane world, there were only eight or nine tiled dwellings. Therefore I had four thatched huts constructed north of the pond among mulberries, elms, plum trees, willows, pines and bamboos, and named it ‘Aiwu Caolu’ (The thatched cottage I love) to fulfill my wish of younger days.”
Master Ruan Wenda’s shrine is at the foot of Mt. Wu in Hangzhou, where the ancient Chongyang An Temple used to stand. Carved on the cliff walls behind the shrine are numerous inscriptions written by people of the Tang (618–907) and Song (960–1279) dynasties; in front is the most exquisite scenery of springs and rocks with ancient trees. In the early years of the Guangxu reign (1875–1908), local officials and gentry collaborated to build a scenic site for his spirit to reside so he might be remembered forever. In the mid-winter of the guiwei year (1883), the Master’s grandson Jingcen (Ruan Engao 阮恩高, 1831–1890) brought an album for me to paint, so I collected the passages in Yingzhou bitan (Notes from an immortal’s boat) compiled by him that could be depicted in paintings and presented them in the preceding pages for his instruction.[3] Wang Jun noted in addition.
Yanshan you bi 硯山又筆 Yizheng Wang Jun Yanshan shuhua yin 儀徵汪鋆硯山書畫印 Wang Jun si yin 汪鋆私印 Jixin An zhu 寄心庵主 Wangdu shi hua 汪度詩畫 Yanshan shuhua 硯山書畫 Wangdu 汪度 Wang Jun hua yin 汪鋆畫印 Yan, shan 硯、山
Label strip
Wang Ti 王褆 (1880–1960), 1 column in seal script and 2 columns in semi-cursive script, dated 1933; 1 seal:
汪硯山繪 《阮文達公遺事十景》 癸酉霜降節古杭王褆題。 [印]：王褆
Frontispiece
Wang Ti 王褆 (1880–1960), 4 columns in seal script and 4 columns in semi-cursive script, dated 1933; 3 seals:
汪硯山繪 《阮文達遺事十景》 癸酉小暑後二日，古杭王褆篆於滬上。 [印]：王褆、福庵囗囗書、琅邪郡
Collector’s seal
Unidentified 介四得鼎為幸
[1] Translations by Shi-yee Liu. [2] “Quantang” may be a mistake for “Shuangquan 爽泉,” Gao Kai’s style name (hao). [3] The Yingzhou bitan was actually compiled by Ruan Yuan’s cousin Ruan Heng 阮亨 (1783–1859).
[ Sotheby's, New York , until sale, Fine Chinese Paintings, May 31, 1994, lot 134, to Sydney L. Moss, Ltd.; [ Sydney L. Moss Ltd. , London; sold to Curtis]; Julia and John Curtis , Williamsburg, VA (until 2015; donated to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Art of the Chinese Album," September 6, 2014–March 29, 2015.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting," October 29, 2016–August 6, 2017.
Meyer-Fong, Tobie. Building Culture in Early Qing Yangzhou. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003, pp. 123–27.
Assistant Research Curator Shi-yee Liu discusses the three types of pictorial narratives explored in the exhibition Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting.
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