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rice-farming and sericulture, each of the forty-eight scenes inscribed with a poem by Lou
himself. After their presentation to the Song emperor in 1153 the Gengzhi tuঁᔌྡ
(Pictures of Tilling and Weaving) also underwent variations and new editions, crossing
media from silk canvas to porcelain vases and wall art.
Francesca Bray has argued that the Gengzhi tu in the Southern Song was a visual
depiction that conveyed a message to the court celebrating the indispensable role of the
Jiangnan landscape in relation to the state’s responsibility to construct social harmony
and political order. At the time of Lou Shou’s painting, the imperial state had suffered a
disastrous defeat. Having lost the north to the Mongol rulers, it was now dependent on
the areas in Jiangnan for economic livelihood. While the desire to relay a message about
the importance of a locale or region to the larger imperial livelihood was certainly the
mission of the visual project of Zheng Tinggui’s woodblock prints in 1815, Bray’s
interpretation does not explain the Qianlong period sets of Taoye tu that had imperial
court origins. In fact, the Qing period saw an upsurge in courtly interest in image-text
paired paintings albums depicting production processes. In 1696, Kangxi emperor
commissioned a new painting album of the Gengzhi tu, rendered by court artist Jiao
Bingzhen ೊ٢ࠊ. The Gengzhi tu received significant official patronage by the Kangxi
court in that Kangxi ordered not only the drawing of the paintings but also followed his
order with an edict to engrave, print, and distribute woodblock printed versions among
regional officials. Later, the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors commissioned their own
reproductions and composed new poems to accompany the pictures. The lack of
attention in the Gengzhi tu composition of the Qing period to the technical improvements
in farming practice that occurred between the Song and Qing allow Bray to conclude that
