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

1. This article is based on a paper given at the University of Chicago on Mar. 1, 1991, at a symposium to honor Father Harrie A. Vanderstappen on his retirement. While the research on the paintings in Wang Zhen's tomb is a recent project, the work on Shen Zhou's collection was done as part of my dissertation under Father Vanderstappen's supervision. I owe a great deal to him, to Professor David Roy, and to my fellow students at the University of Chicago. Timothy Brook's comments on an earlier version were quite helpful, and I also wish to thank the anonymous reader for the Art Bulletin who brought the scholarship of Mori Masao and Roger Chartier to my attention. The research on Wang Zhen's tomb has been funded by two grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, that on Shen Zhou's collection by the American Oriental Society Award for the Study of Chinese Painting, the Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, and the Whiting Fellowship for Dissertation Writing.

I change other romanizations to pinyin even in quotes in the text, but not in the notes, and follow the original romanization for names of contemporaries and titles of books and articles. The only exception is for Daoism and the Way (Dao), which are better known to nonsinologists as Taoism and the Tao. Translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.

For Shen Zhou (Shen Chou), see Cahill, 1978, chap. 2, pt. 3; and R. Edwards, The Field of Stones: A Study of the Art of Shen Chou (1427-1509), Freer Gallery of Art, Oriental Studies no. 5, Washington, D.C., 1962.

2. Edward L. Farmer, "An Agenda for Ming History: Exploring the Fifteenth Century," Ming Studies, no. 26, 1988, 1-17. Attempting to redress the neglect of this century, Farmer organized a two-part panel for the 1987 annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies. Articles based on its papers are included in this issue of Ming Studies as well as in no. 27, 1989.

3. Yin Jinan, 71-72.

4. Cahill, 1992, 7; Cahill, 1994, 16-17; and Liscomb, 1994, 8-34.

5. Cahill, 1992, 1-5; and Cahill, 1994, 16.

6. See Yin Jinan, passim, for a detailed study of the scroll with works dedicated to Zheng Jun.

7. "Survey Report," 11; Xu Bangda, 17; and Liscomb, 1994, 19.

8. Liscomb, 1994, 27. I am using the wording of the English-version manuscript Professor Cahill generously lent me; in the published Chinese version (Cahill, 1992, 8) "fast-functional painting" is rendered as "nei lei caocheng de gongneng hua."

9. Ho Ping-ti, 2-3, 18-20; and Clunas, 141.

10. Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank, gen. eds., The Cambridge History of China: III. Sui and T'ang China, 589-906, pt. 1, ed. Denis Twitchett, New York, 1978, 29-31.

11. Hsi, 171-75, details such contributions to the community as public construction work, establishing schools, distributing grain, and contributing to local defense efforts. Keith Hazelton, "Patrilines and the Development of Localized Lineages: The Wu of Hsiu-ning City, Hui-chou, to 1528," in Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000-1940, ed. P. Buckley Ebrey and J. L. Watson, Berkeley, 1986, 157-58, notes that the approbation of the larger community was one motivation for undertaking activities that honored one's ancestors and fostered cohesion in one's descent group. He discusses one lineage branch that flourished in the 15th century on the basis of wealth acquired through trade.