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Plate 11.1 Anonymous, after Xie Huan 謝環 (1377–1452), Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden (Xingyuan yaji tu 杏園雅集圖), dated
1437, Beijing. Handscroll, ink and colours on silk, height 37.5cm, width 240.7cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, the
Dillon Fund Gift 1989 (1989.141.3)

Plate 11.2 Anonymous, after Xie Huan 謝環 (1377–1452), Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden (Xingyuan yaji tu 杏園雅集圖), dated
1437. Handscroll, ink and colours on silk, height 37cm, width 401cm. Zhenjiang Museum, Jiangsu province

painting. Wu Kuan had previously viewed the Elegant Yang Rong 楊榮 (1371–1440) in eastern Beijing, and the
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Gathering in the Apricot Garden scroll, and in 1503 participated event was a gathering of scholars. From Yang Shiqi’s preface
in a gathering of ‘five who are alike’ (Wu tong hui 五同會), in we can ascertain that he is more interested in the erudite
this case referring to five officials who had much in common, nature of the gathering, and not in its pictorial
and penned a preface to the event. Fifty years later, Xu substantiation. By contrast, the postscript (houxu 后序)
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Lun, son of Xu Jin who participated in the Birthday Gathering authored by Yang Rong emphasises the image and the
in the Bamboo Garden, saw a version of the Elegant Gathering in visual evidence provided within.
the Apricot Garden in Taiyuan 太原, Shanxi 山西 province, in The date of the gathering is the first day of the third
1550. In 1560, as noted above, he published woodblock- month in 1437. It would indeed have been the season when
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printed versions of the Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden apricot blossoms were in flower, and a day that ministers
and the Birthday Gathering in the Bamboo Garden scrolls, which and scholar officials would have been off duty or at rest.
were by then in his own collection. The trope retained its With the exception of Xie Huan, there were nine scholar
vitality into the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). As late as 1791 officials present. The colophons connect this group of nine
Weng Fanggang 翁方綱 (1733–1818) viewed the Zhenjiang men to the subject matter Nine Elders of the Mountain of
version of the Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden in the Fragrance (Xiangshan jiulao 香山九老) (Pl. 11.4) of the Tang
collection of Chu Pengling 初彭齡 (d. 1825); this event is dynasty (618–907), made famous by the poet Bai Juyi 白居易
memorialised in his lengthy colophon. (772–846). There is only one apricot tree visible in the
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This discussion will be limited to the Zhenjiang version of composition, an ancient tree whose flowers are in bloom.
the Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden and to Xu Lun’s Based on the description written by the garden’s host Yang
woodblock print of the same work. These two share a similar Rong, there ought to be a proliferation of trees in the
pictorial model that has been influential over the course of garden, but instead we see more evidence of evergreens and
history. I agree with the view of the Taiwanese scholar Wu bamboo. The guests at the gathering confront the viewer
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Sung-feng 吳誦芬 that this was Xie Huan’s pictorial model. directly, almost to hint that we as viewers are standing
The basic literary and visual evidence of this model provides among the apricot forest, which lies off the bottom edge of
sufficient material to engage in art-historical enquiry, as the picture surface. The garden guests are appreciating the
opposed to dwelling on questions of authenticity, which proliferation of apricot blossoms, but we are unable to share
become of lesser importance. in the object of their appreciation. The apricot flowers they
The four-character title inscription (Xingyuan yaji 杏園雅集) behold are mere imagined objects for us, which is quite
on the Zhenjiang version of the Elegant Gathering in the Apricot poetic.
Garden is absent from Xu Lun’s woodcut version. The What is the nature, and indeed the purpose, of this
inscription serves to emphasise the location and the nature image? Is it primarily intended for entertainment, or does it
of the event: the location was the home of Grand Secretary have a political meaning? What kind of impression is it

100 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450