Fan page of Fei Danxu’s red line box stealing drawing

[Fan page of Fei Danxu’s red line box stealing map]

Fan page of the red line box stealing map, Qing Dynasty, painted by Fei Danxu, paper, colored, 18.7cm vertically and 53cm horizontally
The fan page has its own title: “The first summer painting of 1911 was made in the still grass hall. Xiaolou Danxu.” The seal “Zitiao” Zhu Wenyin. “Jihai” is the 19th year of Daoguang (1839), when Fei Danxu was 39 years old
This painting is based on the Red Thread Biography by Yang Juyuan of the Tang Dynasty. It depicts the story of the Red Thread Girl stealing the box and begging for the Lord. Red Thread Girl is the maid of Xue Song, the governor of Luzhou, Shanxi Province. She is good at rhythmic swordsmanship. She heard that Tian Chengsi, the governor of Weibo Town, wanted to seize the land of his master Xue Song, so she volunteered to investigate at Tian Chengsi’s place and stole Tian’s gold box back. Tian knew that Xue Song had a strong hand, so he canceled the idea of killing Xue
The picture depicts the scene of the Red Thread Girl successfully stealing the gold box and returning from the city. Fei Danxu, as the representative of the beautiful women painters in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, has lost her personality and is just a stylized representation of the beauty painting. Red Thread Girl was originally a chivalrous woman who knew swordsmanship and had a generous disposition. However, in the author’s works, in addition to being painted with a sword to indicate her skill, her thin and delicate appearance and the boudoir sadness revealed by the weak willow and wind are completely without the demeanor of a chivalrous woman. The author pays no attention to women’s background, personal temperament and social situation, but only pays attention to the pursuit of women’s external shape, which leads to the same appearance of both royal ladies, poor women, and brothel women in the dust, that is, the body features of neck trimming, shoulder cutting, willow waist, long face, fine eyes, cherry lips, and the appearance style of “leaning on the wind and delicate and weak”