Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Dong Xiaowan
Qinhuai courtesan who became the concubine of the scholar Mao Xiang in 1642 and whose short life with him he recorded in his memoir Yingmei'an yiyu
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Dong Bai · Qinglian Nushi
Dong Xiaowan, whose given name was Bai, was registered in the Qinhuai quarter of Nanjing and later lived in Suzhou; she was known for her calligraphy, tea and needlework and also studied painting. In 1642, at nineteen, Qian Qianyi stepped in to settle her debts and wrote to his protégé Zhang, a ministry official, to have her struck from the register, and she became the concubine of the scholar Mao Xiang of Rugao. When Qing armies swept south she fled with Mao's household from place to place, and when he fell gravely ill she nursed him day and night. She died at Rugao in the first month of 1651, aged twenty-eight by Chinese reckoning, and Mao wrote his Reminiscences of the Plum-Shadow Studio (Yingmei'an yiyu) in her memory, recording their nine years together. A later legend made her the Shunzhi emperor's favourite Consort Donggo, but the historian Meng Sen showed from the dates that the two could not be the same woman.
Life and times
Dates 1624 CE–1651 CE