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Plate 11.3 Two Garden Gatherings (Eryuan ji 二園集), c. 1560. Each page: height 21cm, width 14.7cm. Woodblock print, ink on paper.
Chinese Rare Book Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Plate 11.4 Attributed to Xie Huan 謝環 (1377–1452), Nine Elders of the Mountain of Fragrance (Xiangshan jiulao tu香山九老圖), 1426–52.
Handscroll, ink and colour on silk, height 30.6cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs A. Dean Perry 1997.99

invited everyone to Yang Rong’s Apricot Garden. The by officials from the southern region of the Ming realm.
painter Xie Huan’s arrival seems unexpected, as if he had no Moreover, of the southerners, there were no officials present
foreknowledge of the gathering. From beginning to end, from the provinces of Zhejiang or Jiangsu (Nan zhili 南直隷);
Yang Rong, as host and owner of the garden, does not give of the other eight participants – with the exception of Yang
any suggestion that he was responsible for inviting everyone Pu from Shishou 石首in Huguang 湖廣 province – everyone
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to the gathering. Thus the organiser of this gathering could at the gathering hailed from the single province of Jiangxi.
very well have been Yang Shiqi, the central figure in the Their precise places of origin are as follows:
scroll, as well as the oldest member (at 73 years old) with the
highest official status. It was a known habit of Yang Shiqi to Yang Shiqi: Taihe 泰和 county, Jiangxi
hold gatherings in the private residences of others. For Wang Zhi: Taihe 泰和 county, Jiangxi
example, on the 26th day of the 12th month of 1422 Yang
Shiqi held a ‘Western City Feast’ (Xicheng yanji 西城宴集) in Chen Xun: Taihe 泰和 county, Jiangxi
the home of Chen Jingzong 陳敬宗 (1377–1459) in western Wang Ying: Jinxi 金溪 county, Jiangxi
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Beijing. The public reasons given for the gathering at Yang
Rong’s home were that it was the official season for the Qian Xili: Jishui 吉水 county, Jiangxi
blossoming of apricot trees, just then in full flower, and that
Yang Rong’s Apricot Garden was just east of Chang’anmen Li Shimian: Anfu 安福 county, Jiangxi
長安門 (Gate of Eternal Peace) and near Taijichang 台基厰, Zhou Shu: Jishui 吉水 county, Jiangxi
thus providing a central location convenient for scholar
officials arriving from different directions. This cannot be a coincidence, and in fact on the contrary
From the pictorial representation we learn the important seems to have happened by design. In a certain sense, this
fact that not a single official from the northern part of the gathering can be understood as having the subversive
empire came to the Apricot Garden gathering. Despite the flavour of a ‘gathering of clansmen’. The same had been true
fact that the Yongle 永樂 emperor (r. 1403–24) had been of the ‘Western City Feast’ which Yang Shiqi had convened
combating the powerful cliques of southern landlords since in the home of Chen Jingzong in 1422; of the 17 guests
his accession in 1403, this gathering is attended exclusively present there, 14 were from Jiangxi, and only three were

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