Social status and art collecting: the collections of Shen Zhou and Wang Zhen

Most of the paintings in one of Wang's collection-scrolls were dedicated to Zheng Jun, usually referred to in the inscriptions by one of his other names, Jingrong.(73) Although Cahill describes him as a minor official, there is no solid evidence to support that supposition.(74) People in various walks of life resided in Beijing, traveled, and were addressed respectfully, so the minimal information one can derive about Zheng from the inscriptions addressed to him provides no basis for anything but speculation regarding his career and social status. Because there is no evidence that Wang Zhen and Zheng Jun were friends, it seems reasonable to assume that Wang bought this group of paintings through an intermediary - an art dealer, pawnshop owner, or some member of Zheng's family or social circle.

One might conclude that this portion of the two interred collection-scrolls tells us more about Zheng's tastes than about those of Wang. One might even argue that the paintings not obviously connected with Zheng Jun tend to be more conservative than those dedicated to him. However, by choosing to keep each work rather than to discard or resell it, Wang identified himself with Zheng's artistic tastes. Whether he actually shared Zheng's aesthetic values or merely wished to be seen as doing so is impossible to ascertain. At the least he probably recognized the reputations of the artists or of Zheng Jun as a collector. By acquiring Zheng's collection, Wang may have felt that he had obtained works by a representative sampling of the leading painters of his time. Perhaps he also derived vicarious pleasure from reading the inscriptions on Zheng Jun's paintings, for this man had received works of art from many famous people and such tokens of associations were valued by the educated elite.

In contrast, Shen Zhou's collection of paintings would have reminded him of artists known to him personally or to his family and friends. His more scholarly approach is articulated in a colophon for the collection-scroll written by his older friend Du Qiong:

The preceding paintings, the more than twenty leaves painted on paper that are mounted as a handscroll, are all masterworks by famous scholars of our dynasty from around the reign periods of Yongle [1403-25] and Hongxi [1425-26]. These were collected by Shen Qinan [Shen Zhou] of Suzhou. Often he showed them to me . . . and he asked me to make a record. Although I do not understand the meaning of the paintings, I do know something about the lives of the painters.(75)

Thus, Shen Zhou apparently conceived of the grouping as a means to "write" a history of painting during the recent past. The focus clearly is on the painters; Du almost never mentions the subject matter of the paintings in the collection-scroll, nor did Shen bother to include any anonymous works. In documenting modern painting for posterity, he emphasized the historical role played by known painters, an approach often taken by premodern Chinese and European historians of art. In contrast, Wang Zhen did include anonymous works, and there is no evidence that he conceived of his collection as one documenting a history of early Ming painting. Shen's art-historical approach is the main aspect identifying his collection as one likely to have been formed by a literatus.