Page 14 - Sotheby's Falancai Poppy Bowl Oct. 3, 2018

ETHEREAL BEAUTY

REGINA KRAHL

The unassuming beauty of this outstanding falangcai bowl army, joined by the forces of the other leaders, surrounded
with its ethereal painting of poppies and its elegantly inscribed them with several lines of troops. In the night Xiang Yu
colophon would not immediately suggest that in fact it alludes heard the Han armies all about him singing the songs of
to a major event of China’s history, a story reverberating Chu. ‘Has Han already conquered Chu?’ he exclaimed
with heroism and loyalty, love and devotion, that has become in astonishment. ‘How many men of Chu they have with
romanticized in poetry and fiction. them!’ Then he rose in the night and drank within the
curtains of his tent. With him were the beautiful lady Yu,
The poetic inscription below the rim can be translated:
who enjoyed his favor and followed wherever he went, and
They welcome the wind, his famous steed Dapple, which he always rode. Xiang
as if it could chase the sound of singing that has arisen. Yu, filled with passionate sorrow, began to sing sadly,
The night full of rain, composing this song:
how it causes the dancing sleeve to hang down!
My strength plucked up the hills,
For the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-1795), who as a young man My might shadowed the world;
was of course trained in the Chinese Classics, these two lines, But the times were against me,
together with the flower depicted, in China also known as Yu And Dapple runs no more;
meiren, ‘Beauty Yu’, would immediately have evoked a story When Dapple runs no more,
related in the seminal history of early China, the Shiji, ‘Records What then can I do?
of the Grand Historian’, written by Sima Qian (145-c.90 BC), Ah, Yu, my Yu,
Grand Historian at the Han court (206 BC-AD 220). What will your fate be?
One of the Biographies included in the Shiji is devoted to He sang the song several times through, and Lady Yu joined
Xiang Yu (232-202 BC), a warlord, who fought against the her voice with his. Tears streamed down his face, while all
Qin (221-206 BC) to reinstate the former state of Chu. Upon those about him wept and were unable to lift their eyes from
the fall of the Qin, he proclaimed himself Hegemon King of the ground.
Western Chu and became engaged in a lengthy struggle over
Since having been recorded by Sima Qian, who goes on to
the hegemony of China with Liu Bang (256-195 BC), founder
relate Xiang Yu’s death soon after, this epic story with its
of the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). Although that dynasty
romantic side-line featuring the hero’s consort, Lady Yu (d.
is officially set to have begun in 206 BC, the so-called Chu-
202 BC), has become a beloved popular topic of drama and
Han contention lasted until 202 BC. It ended in the battle
romance in China and – freely enriched and embellished –
of Gaixia (in northern Anhui), where Sima Qian records the
has inspired poems, plays, Peking opera, films, TV series and
following story (translated by Burton Watson in Cyril Birch,
video games to this day. The two lines that are inscribed on
ed., Anthology of Chinese Literature, Harmondsworth, 1967
the present bowl, which refer to the songs of Chu signifying
[1965], p. 142, with the Chinese terms here transferred into
defeat, and the resulting fate of the two lovers, are taken from
pinyin):
a longer late Ming dynasty (1368-1644) poem about poppies
Xiang Yu’s army had built a walled camp at Gaixia, but his (Yong Yu meiren cao) by Xu Gui, that evokes Lady Yu’s story.
soldiers were few and his supplies exhausted. The Han