Lot Essay
The Chinese lady in a canopied carriage at the lower right of this screen represents Wen Chi, who was captured by the Hsuing-nu Tartars in 195 A.D. and carried off to Mongolia, where she married a Hsiung-nu chieftain and bore him two children. The chieftain treated Wen Chi with great kindness. When her family finally ransomed Wen Chi and brought her back to China after twelve years, she wrote a series of poems expressing her sorrow at leaving her husband and children. These poems became famous under the title 'The Eighteen Songs of Wen Chi'. Paintings illustrating the poems became fashionable in China around the beginning of the 13th century and thus entered the repertoire of standard painting subjects handed down to later generations.
'A Tartar Hunt' was likewise a standard Chinese painting theme, first popularized by the Southern Sung court artist Ch'en Chu-chung in the early 13th century. Ever since the Bronze Age, the Chinese had admired and emulated the equestrian skills and derring-do of the Tartars and Mongols in warfare and hunting, even though these fierce nomads from the harsh steppes to the north of China were frequently at war with the Chinese. Ch'en Chu-chung specialized in painting horses, a popular category of Chinese paintings. He developed Tartar or Mongol hunting or encampment scenes as settings for his depictions of horses. The colorful, exotic costumes and artifacts of the nomads fascinated the Chinese. Scenes involving Lady Wen Chi were among Ch'en Chu-chung's favorite subjects.
The hunters and male attendants in the present screen wear Manchu-style hats and have Manchu-style haircuts (crew cut with long queue). 18th and 19th century Korean artists had no way of knowing what early Tartar and Mongol costumes looked like; few if any had access to Sung, Yuan, or even Ming Dynasty Chinese paintings of the subject. Furthermore, prior to their conquest of China in 1644, the Manchus themselves were a nomadic people of northeast Asia, not unlike the Tartars and Mongols. The Manchus invaded Korea in 1627 and 1636; in 1637 they forced Korea to become a tributary state, which it remained throughout the Ch'ing (Manchu) Dynasty of China (1644-1912).
'A Tartar Hunt' was likewise a standard Chinese painting theme, first popularized by the Southern Sung court artist Ch'en Chu-chung in the early 13th century. Ever since the Bronze Age, the Chinese had admired and emulated the equestrian skills and derring-do of the Tartars and Mongols in warfare and hunting, even though these fierce nomads from the harsh steppes to the north of China were frequently at war with the Chinese. Ch'en Chu-chung specialized in painting horses, a popular category of Chinese paintings. He developed Tartar or Mongol hunting or encampment scenes as settings for his depictions of horses. The colorful, exotic costumes and artifacts of the nomads fascinated the Chinese. Scenes involving Lady Wen Chi were among Ch'en Chu-chung's favorite subjects.
The hunters and male attendants in the present screen wear Manchu-style hats and have Manchu-style haircuts (crew cut with long queue). 18th and 19th century Korean artists had no way of knowing what early Tartar and Mongol costumes looked like; few if any had access to Sung, Yuan, or even Ming Dynasty Chinese paintings of the subject. Furthermore, prior to their conquest of China in 1644, the Manchus themselves were a nomadic people of northeast Asia, not unlike the Tartars and Mongols. The Manchus invaded Korea in 1627 and 1636; in 1637 they forced Korea to become a tributary state, which it remained throughout the Ch'ing (Manchu) Dynasty of China (1644-1912).