A catalogue of the Ashmolean collection of Chinese paintings by Shelagh Vainker (published Oxford, 2000).
Lu Zhi, also known as Shuping or Baoshan, was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. He was admired in his lifetime for his bird-and-flower painting, though today his landscapes in the style of Song court painting are equally appreciated. Like his friend Wen Zhengming (1470-1559), the illustrious literati painter, Lu Zhi was good at poems. The inscribed poem composed by him reads: ‘[I] used to be a piece of jade on top of a hairpin, [but] now [I] am a flower on top of a branch; [I] feel sad in the night of bright moon, [as I want] to fly back home’. The flower here embodies the feelings of a homesick girl, who sees the jade on her hairpin as a sign of home.
Vainker, Shelagh, Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2000), no. 84 on p. 104, illus. p. 105 fig. 84
Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.
Object information may not accurately reflect the actual contents of the original publication, since our online objects contain current information held in our collections database. Click on 'buy this publication' to purchase printed versions of our online publications, where available, or contact the Jameel Study Centre to arrange access to books on our collections that are now out of print.
© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum