The Painting Scroll of the Red Cliff Ode by Qiu Ying, Empress Kesi

[The Painting Scroll of Qiu Ying’s Empress on the Red Cliff]

The Painting Scroll of Qiu Ying’s Empress on the Red Cliff, written during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, is 30 centimeters in length and 498 centimeters in width
“Fu on the Back of Red Cliff” was painted by Su Shi, a great literary figure, after his return to Red Cliff in the fifth year of Yuanfeng in the Northern Song Dynasty (1082). Qiu Ying, a painter of the Ming Dynasty, painted according to the Fu. This scroll is woven by a tapestry artist using Qiu Ying’s painting as a blueprint, depicting in detail the scene of Su Shi’s night tour of Red Cliff in the early winter. The picture is divided into 8 sections, the first three sections showing Su Shi’s joy in revisiting the old land, and the second five sections expressing the emotion of life as a dream through the scenery. The scroll adopts a variety of weaving methods such as flat tapestry, long and short tapestry, structural tapestry, shuttle weaving, and guan weaving, using more than 20 colors of silk threads. The woven characters are vivid, the scenery is realistic, and there are cracks in the mountain stone hooks, mainly in stone, stone green, and ochre, reflecting Qiu Ying’s small green landscape style, reflecting the superb craftsmanship of the Qing Dynasty tapestry artists
At the beginning, there is the “Yun Ji Xian System” written by the Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, and the “Qianlong Imperial Brush” is stamped with the Zhu Wen seal. In the volume, there are also seals such as “Qianlong Appreciation”, “Treasure of Qianlong Imperial Tour”, “Shiqu Treasure Collection”, “Shiqu Definite Collection”, “Re compilation of Treasure Collection”, “Treasure of Xuantong Imperial Tour”, “Xuantong Appreciation”, “Suitable for Descendants”, “Sanxi Hall Precise Seal”, “Qianqing Palace Treasure Collection”, and “Wuyi Studio Precise Seal”. At the end of the period, the blue character “Shi Fu Qiu Ying” and the gourd shaped “Shi Zhou” Zhu seal were woven
This is the longest scroll in the existing Kesi paintings in the Forbidden City, and the scroll is used for horizontal weaving. Looms with a width of more than 5 meters are rare
Five letters and eighteen volumes of “Shiqu Baoji Continuation” are described.