Many of the British Museum's calligraphy and painting collections are related to the forbidden city's calligraphy and paintings, and have rich research value. Scholar Yu Hui has the following account of this research in the article "British Reading Catalogue NO. 2 Searching for Docking with the Forbidden City" published in the Forbidden City Magazine.
Some media said that my trip to Britain "realized the docking of the Forbidden City in Beijing and the British Museum", but in fact, this is only a formal docking. I found that the British Museum not only has Dunhuang cultural relics but also more than ten pieces of Forbidden City calligraphy and paintings.
British Museum Web Images
Zhu Bang ,字正之,also known as Jinzhi (新安, in present-day Shexian County, Anhui), was active in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, he was good at painting landscapes and figures, and his painting style belonged to Wu Wei's ink and ink all the way, and there were not many of his heirloom works, and the Forbidden City in Beijing only had one of Zhu Bang's "Character Map" axis. Zhu Bang's life is even more confusing, and there is no record of serving in the court of the Ming Dynasty.
Ming Zhu Bang's "Map of the King's City" axis
Seeing the axis of the "Royal Palace Map" drawn by him in the British Museum (colored on silk, 170 in length and 108.8 cm in width), it can be found that one of Zhu Bang's two can be found. The left man in the picture is the designer of the Forbidden City in the Ming Dynasty, Suzhou Pu Xiang (1398~1481), who came from a family of carpenters, and was called "Puluban" at the time. On the canvas there is the author's self-signed "Fengxi" (on the right side opposite Ku Xiang in the frame), which is an abbreviation of Zhu Bang's number "Fengxi Daoren", and the lower part is "The Seal of Zhu Bang" (Zhu Wen).
Zhu Bang style print in part of the "Map of the King's City"
Partial portrait of The King's City Map
Part of the "Map of the King's City"
However, this work tells some of Zhu Bang's experiences, from the layout of the picture, this is a portrait of the deceased, it can be seen that the picture was painted shortly after the death of Pu Xiang, the painting of Ku Xiang holding a wat board in the back of the hand, standing on the west side of the Jinshui Bridge of Chengtian Gate (that is, Tiananmen Gate in the Qing Dynasty), behind it is the Noon Gate, Fengtian Gate (that is, the Qing Dynasty Taihe Gate), the Fengtian Hall (that is, the Qing Dynasty Taihe Hall), in front of which is the Daming Gate, the Zhengyang Gate, and the officials in Ming Dynasty official uniforms stand outside the Zhengyang Gate, which is the necessary door to Suzhou, which should be the homecoming of The Soul of Yingxuan Xiang.
The silk of this drawing is not a property of the inner court, it will not be painted for the palace, it should be for the guild engaged in subang architecture in Beijing, for the worship of the guild's men. There are three other surviving pieces of such paintings, which are stored in the National Museum of China, the Nanjing Museum, and the National Palace Museum in Taipei, whose composition and style are generally similar, but the British version of Ku Xiang stands on the left side of the canvas. Based on the contents of the painting, it can be inferred that Zhu Bang made a living in Beijing in the last years of Chenghua (1465-1487).
Ming Zhu Bang "Landscape Map" axis
Zhu Bang's "Landscape Map" axis partial
Zhu Bang style print on the axis of the "Landscape Map"
In the British Museum, there is also a scroll of Zhu Bang's "Landscape Map" (silk, ink pen, 160.3 vertical and 100.5 cm horizontal) that we do not know much about, and on the canvas there is a famous painter' model: "Zhu Bang", the second seal of the lower plutonium: "The Seal of Zhu Bang" (Zhu Wen), "Jiulong Mountain Qiao □ Shu" (Bai Wen), painting the river under the cliff, the scene of the fisherman's late return, some are cooking at night, which belongs to the fishing music theme, which is the fishing music theme that the Zhejiang and Jiangxia schools like to express.
The painter's brush and ink is rough and refreshing, cheerful, in the fog, the layers of distance and proximity are clear, the mountain stone uses the pen to dilute the contour lines, and the light ink with a large brush is very vivid, which is much warmer and softer than the rough and bold landscape brush and ink of Dai Jin of the Zhejiang School, Wu Wei of the Jiangxia School, etc., but it is more free, and the painter pays more attention to the rich changes of the ink rhyme and the sense of distance between near and far, and there is a sense of cloud steaming and misty water.
Ming Anon. "Landscape Map" axis
Anon. "Landscape Map" axis partial
The above discussion of two paintings with Zhu Bang's famous style, especially Zhu Bang's "Landscape Map" axis, provides a reliable basis for the British Museum's other two anonymous paintings similar to Zhu Bang's style to explore clues to their era. One is the anonymity of the "Landscape Map" axis (silk ink pen, length 160. 3、 Horizontal 101. 4 cm), the other is the "Mountain And Water Drawing of a Donkey Riding Figure" axis (silk ink pen, length 93. 1. Horizontal 46. 1 cm), they pay more attention to the visual effect of ink vigorous in expression.
Ming Anon. "Mountain Landscape Drawing of a Donkey Riding Character" axis
At the British Museum, the landscape paintings of the Zhejiang and Jiangxia schools have some fine works, which have a lot to do with the attention of Professor Roderick Whitfield, who worked in the oriental department of the museum in the 1970s and 1980s.