16TH/17TH CENTURY

This figure's finely detailed armor, black cap with flower, wind-swept hair, militant posture and long staff are similar to other paintings of the Daoist figure identified as Wen Qiong, also known as Wen Yuanshi and Marshal Wen. Wen Qiong was a local deity in the coastal province of Zhejiang who became popular in the Southern Song and Yuan periods and was eventually adopted into the Daoist pantheon. According to the Song dynasty Daoist text Daozang, Wen Qiong was originally a Tang dynasty man with exceptional fighting abilities. As a Daoist deity, his primary function was to protect against plague demons, the supposed cause of the infectious diseases that troubled the region. His cult remained a local one, confined to the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Sichuan. He is still popular in Taiwan, although images of Wen Qiong there do not always have blue skin and red hair. This depiction of Wen Qiong shares many attributes, including his blue skin and red hair and background of billowing clouds, with a late 14th/early 15th century portrait in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which was exhibited and discussed by S. Little, Taoism and The Arts of China, Chicago, 2000, pp. 264-5, no. 87. The author traces Wen Qiong's blue skin and red hair to the Yuan dynasty text Complete Compendium of the Deities of the Three Religions and their Origins (Sanjiao yuanliu soushen faquan). Similarly, the flower in his cap is identified as a jade flower (qionghua), which the Jade Emperor used to grant immortality.