282 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



king (Fig. 189) holding a sword adorned with these ornaments. This 

 picture has a special interest to us, as it is stated in the accompanying 

 text that it is derived from the series of Virtuous Women (Lieh nil t'u) 

 of the famous painter KuCh'ang-k'ang, or Ku K'ai-chih of the fourth 

 century a. d., and that it represents Wu, king of Ch'u (b. c. 740-690) 

 carrying a sword in his belt which is ornamented at the upper and lower 

 ends with the jade carvings called peng and pi. 1 The series of pictures 



frfr 



'/I 



/ » » v 



* 



Fig. 186. 

 White Jade Ornament, pi, for Lower End of Scabbard. 



here alluded to was first published in print in 1063 a. d., and republished 

 in facsimile in four volumes at Yang-chou in 1825 (under the title Ku 

 lieh nil chuan). 2 There we find the same figure in the second volume 

 No. 2, with the same designation; the king is engaged in conversation 

 with the queen, the princess Man of Teng. It is the illustration of the 

 scene described by Tschepe (Histoire du royaume de Tch'ou, p. 22). 

 The drawing of the sword is much plainer there than in our picture and 

 lacking in those ornamental characteristics for the sake of which it is 



^n Ku K'ai-chih see Giles, Introduction etc., pp. 17-21; Hirth, Scraps, 

 pp. 51-53; Chavannes, T'oung Pao, 1904, pp. 323-325. The biography translated 

 by Chavannes from the Tsin shu is certainly not the life of the painter, but a collec- 

 tion of merry tricks in the style of Eulenspiegel which tradition has centralized around 

 his person; such types have been created by popular tradition everywhere, and any 

 good jokes are finally ascribed to them. Most of these anecdotes concerning the 

 painter have a world-wide currency; the last, e. g., occurs in the Turkish stories of 

 Nassr-eddin. 



2 A copy procured by me in China is in the John Crerar Library (No. 673). 



