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Lot Essay
This short handscroll features a scholar at leisure reclining with his robes open and his legs crossed in an open waterside pavilion. The true theme of this painting, however, is the activity of the women-the servant next to the scholar who holds a long pole and the three ladies in the small boat-who are all engaged in picking lotus seeds. As reflected in the transcriptions of ancient poems in this scroll's colophons, this task was conducted in the summer to gather the ingredients to make a cooling soup and has long been celebrated in literature as a topic associated with women, beauty and romance.
Lotus Picking is followed by two colophons. Yu Yuwen (14th century) first copied in clerical script (li shu) two famous poems, primarily from the Liang and Tang dynasties, on the painting's theme. He then discussed the history of this subject, praised Qiu Ying for successfully capturing an "ancient feeling" (gu yi) and related that this painting was made for the high-ranking official Zhou Yuhuang, who then asked Yu to write out these ancient poems. The second colophon was written by Zhang Fengyi (1550-1636) and is a transcription of the Tang poet Wang Bo's (649-676) famous poem on this subject Cailian Qu.
Lotus Picking is followed by two colophons. Yu Yuwen (14th century) first copied in clerical script (li shu) two famous poems, primarily from the Liang and Tang dynasties, on the painting's theme. He then discussed the history of this subject, praised Qiu Ying for successfully capturing an "ancient feeling" (gu yi) and related that this painting was made for the high-ranking official Zhou Yuhuang, who then asked Yu to write out these ancient poems. The second colophon was written by Zhang Fengyi (1550-1636) and is a transcription of the Tang poet Wang Bo's (649-676) famous poem on this subject Cailian Qu.