Gu Kaizhi’s Women’s History Proverbs (copy of Song Dynasty)

[Gu Kaizhi’s Book of Women’s History Proverbs (copy of Song)]

The Book of Women’s History Proverbs (copy of Song), Eastern Jin Dynasty, Gu Kaizhi’s painting, paper, ink, horizontal 601 cm, vertical 27.9 cm.
The Proverbs of Women’s History was written by Zhang Hua, the Marquis of Guangwu in the Western Jin Dynasty. The content of the text is about women’s moral integrity and aims at educating and admonishing. Gu Kaizhi described the story in the text in the form of pictures to make it easy to understand. The earliest extant painting version of “The Legend of Women’s History” is a copy of the Tang Dynasty. It was originally collected by the Qing Dynasty Palace and is now in the British Museum. This volume is a copy of the Song Dynasty. There are 11 paintings in the whole picture, including “Fanji Ganzhuang”, “Wei Nu Jiao Huan”, “Feng Jieyu blocks the bear”, “Ban Jieyu leaves the chariot”, “Be cautious and considerate”, “Know and adorn its nature”, “Show its good words”, “Spiritual supervisor has no image”, “Joy can’t be profane”, “Be quiet and respectful and think for yourself”, and “Women’s History Secretary’s admonition”. This volume is a line drawing of characters, with fluent strokes and fine and continuous lines. It is more robust than Gao Gu’s hairstyle drawing, and is closer to Li Gonglin’s school. The figure image has an ancient meaning. The Song copy of this volume has two more paragraphs than the Tang copy, which is of important reference value for understanding the original and its spread of “The Legend of Women”, as well as the evolution of early figure painting
The four words “the beginning of Wang Hua” in the imperial book of Emperor Qianlong are introduced, followed by the inscriptions of Bao Xilu, Xie Xun, Zhang Meihe and Zhao Qian. This seal is sealed by Qianlong, Jiaqing, Xuantong, Liang Qingbiao, etc. Volume 32 and 35 of Shiqu Treasure Collection