15_12 and 15_13

15_12
From reference 1	From reference 1
15_13	Ms. Han’s spouse is Luxian [style name of Gu Shouqian], a gentleman of talent. He studied landscape painting with me, yet he is particularly good at figure and flower-and- bird painting. It is indeed [the case] that the pupil excels the teacher just as ice derives from water but it is colder than water. Ms. Han’s embroideries are colorful and magnificent, and use excellent silk. Her work is so fine that her peers cannot compete with her. Now I begin to understand that the legendary genius Guo Pu’s three-foot brocade [a metaphor for his talent] not only was cut and used up by Jiang Yan in his dream, but also was obtained by these women using their needles. The cosmic element of spiritual beauty is indeed not monopolized by the male. Viewing this album, [I surmise that Ms. Han’s work] surpasses Huang Quan and his son’s bird-and-flower painting that were drawn from life. It looks like a painting, but when an expert inspects it closely, only then he realizes that it is women’s needlework. [She is] so dexterous that her work rivals the work of nature. Marvelous! Marvelous! From reference 1
From reference 1	韓媛之耦為旅仙才 士也山水師予而人物 花卉尤擅冰寒之譽 繡采絢麗良絲點染 精工遂使同儕不能 望見顏色 始知郭 景純三尺錦不獨江 淹夢中割截都 盡又為女郎輩針 鋒收之。其靈秀之 氣信不獨鍾於男子 觀此冊有過於黃荃 父子之寫生望之似書 畫當行家迫察之乃知 為女紅者人巧極天工 錯奇矣奇矣 From reference 1

The silk embroderies 15_12, dated 1641 and the accompanying colophon by Dong Qichang, dated 1636, belonged to Duanfang, and are now in the Shanghai Museum.

Bibliography

^{1. I-Fen Huang, Gender, Technical Innovation and Gu family embroidery in late-Ming Shanghai, EASTM, 36, 77-129, 2012
(http://www.eastm.org/index.php/journal/article/view/605)↩}