Emperor Huizong 宋徽宗 (1082-1135), Court ladies preparing newly woven silk, early 12th century, Northern Song dynasty. Ink, color, and gold on silk, image: 37.1 x145 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Where do we see the bodies and labor of women?
Jiao Bingzhen (1689–1726), Yuzhi gengzhi tu 御製耕織圖 (Imperially Commissioned Illustrations of Agriculture and Sericulture), 1696, Kangxi reign (1662–1722), Qing dynasty. Woodblock print on paper. Image: 24 × 24 cm. The British Museum, London.
Female labor is hidden within the boundaries of the home rather than the open fields. Women are surrounded by man-made enclosures and cultivated landscapes while tending to their children and weaving silk. However, these roles should not be mistaken for passivity—women, too, are bodies of labor.
The Art of Embroidery
Ding Pei, The Way of Embroidery (Xiupu), 1821
“The needle is your writing brush; the length of silk your paper; the silk floss your ink. The materials needed are simple but its benefits are numerous. No wonder embroidery is the art of writing for women.”
Gu Family Embroidery (guxiu 顾绣)
huaxiu = “pictorial embroidery” or xiuhua = “embroidered painting”
Created by ladies from the household of Gu Mingshi in Late Ming Songjiang (present-day Shanghai)
Album of Eight Embroideries of Famous Song and Yuan Paintings (Song Yuan mingqi fangce 宋元名 迹方册)
This album consists of eight embroidered reproductions of Song and Yuan paintings by Han Ximeng, one of the most celebrated female embroiderers of the Ming dynasty. Each album leaf is accompanied by the collaborative work of Ming scholar, Dong Qichang 董其昌 (1555-1636), and his calligraphy.
Han Ximeng signed her work with an embroidered red seal reading “Ms. Han’s womanly work” (韓式女紅 hanshi nügong)—a sign that asserts her authorship within a society where women’s labor was often dismissed as decorative or domestic. But her work was more than craft: Han’s embroidered landscapes rivaled that of brush and ink, transforming traditions of feminine labor into artistic production.
Han Ximeng, Album Leaf 4: Quail (Chunniao tu 鹑鸟图 ), 17th Century, late Ming Dynasty. Embroidery on silk, 33.4 x 24.5 cm. The Palace Museum, Beijing.
Han Ximeng, Album Leaf 6: Squirrel and Grapes (Putao songshu tu 葡萄松鼠图), 17th Century, late Ming Dynasty. Embroidery on silk, 33.4 x 24.5 cm. The Palace Museum, Beijing.
“Everyone who saw [the album] became speechless and was astonished. They had never seen [anything like this before]. But they did not know that she had put her mind and her skill in it, had devoted painstaking efforts day and night, and had spent years of effort.”
-Colophon by Gu Shouqian (Han Ximeng’s husband) found in Album of Eight Embroiders of Famous Song and Yuan Paintings
Han Ximeng, Album Leaf 1: Washing a Horse (Xima tu 洗马图), 17th Century, late Ming Dynasty. Embroidery on silk, 33.4 x 24.5 cm. The Palace Museum, Beijing.
Washing Horses in a River 花溪浴馬圖, in the style of Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), 1309, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). Handscroll; ink and color on silk, 39.1 x 402.6 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Detail of Album Leaf 1: Washing a Horse
Detail of Washing Horses in a River
Poem by Dong Qichang 董其昌 (1555-1636):
The sky is covered by a mirror, and the hairy dragon is a bath.
The wind is so strong that it can be seen in nine directions.
It stands out as a wonder, and there is no way to restrain it.
The lightning chases the clouds, and the sight of it is visible for miles.
(“一鉴涵空，毛⻰是浴。鉴逸九方，⻛横歕 玉。屹然权奇，莫可羁束。逐电追云，成里 在目。”)
In Album Leaf 1: Washing a Horse (Xima tu 洗马图), Han Ximeng transforms the threads of her labor into a landscape, inserting her stitch into the male-dominated canon of Chinese ink painting.
The scene itself reveals multiple layers of body and labor. A man washes his horse and the horse is expected to labor for his human owner in the future. The horse is also sustained by the cleansing properties of water. Together—the maker, the figures of the image, and the materials themselves (thread, body, water, and cloth)—reveal a network of intersecting labor.
Orchids as a Female Self-Portrait
Chinese Crown Orchid (Eulophia graminea). Native to Asia. Image courtesy of the North Carolina Botanical Garden.
Ma Shouzhen (1548-1604)
Orchid and Rock, 1572, Ming dynasty (1368-1644)
Hanging scroll; ink on paper, image: 52.7 x 29.2 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Inscription:
Green shadows brushing over the Xiang River,
Pure fragrance permeating the secluded valley.
Executed in a small studio by the Qinghuai River [in Nanjing] in the fourth lunar month of the renshen year (1572). [Signed] Xianglanzi, Xuanxuan, Ma Shouzhen
翠影拂湘江，清芬瀉幽谷。
壬申清和寫於秦淮小閣。湘蘭子玄玄馬守真
Ma Shouzhen, also known as Xianglan 湘蘭 ("Orchid of the Xiang River"), was a courtesan and ink painter of the Ming dynasty. Ma was best known for her paintings of orchids, which she often used as a metaphor for her own body and self. In the inscription of Orchid and Rock, Ma compares herself to the orchids of the Xiang River, evoking tales of the exiled poet Qu Yuan and the Goddesses of the Xiang River, who had drowned themselves in grief.
According to Song dynasty traditions, the orchid was a flower that symbolized the feminine beauty of courtesans and neglected palace women. As both a female painter and courtesan who used her body in the process of making of her work, Ma challenges the social order which praises her artistry but excludes her from official recognition on the basis of her promiscuity. Her painting is a self-portrait, where the orchid becomes an extension of her lived and laboring body.
Bibliography
Barnhart, Richard. Peach Blossom Spring: Gardens and Flowers in Chinese Painting. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983.
Gao, Bingqing. “A Brief Discussion on the Themes of Women’s Embroidery in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.” Asian Culture and History 2.2 (2010): 71-81
Huang, I-Fen. “Gender, Technical Innovation, and Gu Family Embroidery in Late-Ming Shanghai.” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 36.1 (2012): 77-130.
Lee, Sylvia W.S. "Orchid Paintings by Seventeenth-Century Chinese Courtesans: Erotic Performances and Tokens of Seduction." Harvard Asia Quarterly 16, no. 3 (2014): 31-41.