Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Wang Qihan
Southern Tang court painter of Buddhist and Daoist figures under Li Yu, to whom the handscroll Collating Texts is attributed
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.
Wang Qihan came from Jiankang, modern Nanjing, and served as a painter-in-attendance to Li Yu, the last ruler of the Southern Tang, painting Buddhist and Daoist figures as well as landscapes. Guo Ruoxu's Experiences in Painting tells how, when Jinling fell to the Song in 975, a soldier took sixteen of his arhat paintings from a temple; after passing through several hands they reached the future Emperor Taizong, who kept them and admired them, and they came to be called the Arhats of Destiny. Collating Texts, a handscroll in Nanjing University showing a scholar cleaning his ear before a screen, with Song colophons, is attributed to him.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active under Li Yu, last ruler of the Southern Tang (961–975)