Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 10. (Budapest, 1967)
HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM - MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Horváth, Tibor: Reports on the Activities of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts in 1965-1966
Fig. 7. China: reunion of the Literati, embroidery on silk, early 18 th century. 102 X 145 cm. Purchased, inventory number 65.53. In the actual condition, the three parts are sewn together. The colour of the silk is red, the silk-threads used in embi'oidering are multi-coloured. The subject of the picture is the reunion of the literati in a garden. The site is represented with blue rocks, a blossoming tree, the white marble banister with scrolls and flowers, the peonies and bats. Among the nine figures, seven are literati, two of them are servants. In the foreground a scholar in a blue dress is writing on a scroll held by the servant, standing next to him, another servant is holding the inkstone. Higher up, a scholar in yellow and blueish dress is seated at a table with crooked legs, playing chess watched by a bearded colleague of his, in a mustard coloured dress. In the foreground vf right side another scholar in a pink dress is talking with a mandarin. Higher up on the right side, a scholar in a blue dress is walking with a book in his hand. This is the subject of this embroidered tableau as far as we could follow. We could not find any similar representation. But since the reunion of literati or the banquet of them is often depicted in the most different branches of Chinese art, it is highly possible that this composition is a repetition of similar motives on paintings, on porcelain, and so on. It is not out of question that a distant connection existed also. In the article of "Sun Wei's 'Kao Yi J'u' and the Style of Ku K'ai-chih" by Ch'eng Mingshih, Wenwu 1965. 8 pp. 15 — 23, we find references of 24 — known or lost — paintings from Ku K'ai-chih up to the Yuan period, all depicting the 3 rd century painting "Seven Wise Men in a Bamboogrove". Although on these pictures, the seven literati are represented in old fashioned dresses and in more or less canonized positions, as we know it from the preserved paintings, still, it is not out of question, that the same theme could reach through many centuries, in a loosened up way as in the composition of our embroidery. This is probable because of the similarities existing between the subject matter of a painting done by Li Kuan-tao in the 14 th century (two are playing chess, a third is watching them, a servant boy is stretching a scroll, and so on) and our embroidery.
