Emperor Hui-tsung: Poem

Sung dynasty

Handscroll / ink on silk

Handscroll : 27.7 x 340.0cm (including postscript)

Emperor Hui-tsung (1082-1135), whose family name was Chao and given name was Chi, was the eleventh son of the Sung Emperor Shen-tsung. Hui-tsung, well known as a literati emperor devoted to prose and poetry, was skilled in calligraphy and painting. He was talented in human figure and bird-and-flower paintings, and showed prominence in the vivid depiction of figures. This poem, written in the shou-chin ("slender gold") style, is composed in twenty lines of two large characters each.