The Palace Museum collection portrays ancient literary gatherings

Elegant gathering (yaji) means literati meeting in ancient China. Wang Shen (c.1048-1104), son-in-law of the Yingzong Emperor (r. 1064-1067) of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) once invited 16 celebrated literati to gather at his private garden – the Western Garden (Xiyuan) in today's Kaifeng, Henan province.

The gathering was said to have been recorded in painting and texts respectively by Li Gonglin (1049-1106) and Mi Fu (1051-1107), two of China's greatest artists of the dynasty. The subject was so popular among the intelligentsia that artists in the following dynasties have created their own versions of the congregation. Let’s admire the work by the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) court painter Ding Guanpeng (act. 18th century) in the collection of the Palace Museum.