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Zhang Xihuang
Late Ming carver who perfected liuqing, cutting landscapes and pavilions into the thin skin of bamboo
A craft workshop centres on a potter's wheel holding a tall celadon vase, amid racks of red lacquer boxes, an embroidery frame with a floral design, shelves of celadon ware, carved wooden panels and stacked logs, while one craftsman works at a table and another stands at a glowing kiln.
Also known as Signed Xihuangzi
- Roles
- Master Craftsmen
Zhang Xihuang was a carver of bamboo and wood in the late Ming whose life is unrecorded. He is known for liuqing, 'leaving the green': keeping the thin outer skin of the bamboo for the design and paring away the rest to expose the paler fibre beneath, so that the difference in tone gives depth and shading to landscapes and buildings; later liuqing carvers around Changzhou and Wuxi looked to him as their model. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds his brush holder illustrating The Pavilion of the Old Drunkard, and the Palace Museum in Beijing an aloeswood wine cup showing Su Dongpo's outing to Red Cliff, signed Xihuangzi.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active in the late Ming, early 17th century