Rain-coming Pavilion by the Stone Bridge at Mt. Tiantai

Image: 34.5 x 142.6 公分 (13 9/16 x 56 1/8 英吋)

Artist's inscription, signature, and 2 seals: Painting of Rain-Coming Pavilion by the Stone Bridge at Mount T'ien-t'ai. In the twenty-eighth year of the Tao-kuang era [1848], the third lunar month, requested by and painted for P'an Kung-fu [P'an Tseng-i], a senior family friend. [signed] Your junior, Tai Hsi from Ch'ien-t'ang. [seal] Ho-pi chien Tai. [seal, lower right corner] Shih-ping yeh._x000D_
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Title on frontispiece and 3 seals of Juan Yüan (1764-1849). 1 colophon and 10 additional seals: 1 colophon, dated 1838, and 8 seals of P'an Tseng-i (1792-1853); 2 seals unidentified._x000D_
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Colophon by P'an Tseng-i:_x000D_
The T'an-hua [a flower that blooms only momentarily in semi-tropical areas] Pavilion near Shih-liang [the natural stone bridge] was built by the Grand Chancellor Chia [the notorious Chia Ssu-tao, 1213-1275, who served during the reigns of Emperor Li-tsung and Emperor Tu-tsung before the end of the Southern Sung Dynasty]. It lasted over seven hundred years. After it was destroyed this year, I happened to be there, so I suggested it be reconstructed. Among the six poems commemorating my visit, one reads:_x000D_
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The career of the Prime Minister may be as great as the rivers and lakes,_x000D_
Unaware himself of the fact there is leaking._x000D_
I had been all over the seventy-two peaks of P'eng-lai mountains_x000D_
When the timely rain came to T'an-hua Pavilion._x000D_
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It had not been raining for a long time there, then unexpectedly, the rain came simultaneously with my arrival; the old monk there asked me to change the name to Rain-Coming Pavilion, in order to record the joy. The hilly fields at Mt. T'ien-t'ai have suffered by droughts. If, from this year on, they have the timely rain to bring along bountiful harvests and make people happy - so may this pavilion be our witness._x000D_
Hsiao-fu shan-jen, P'an Tseng-i recorded this on the first day of the twelfth lunar month in the wu-hsü year [1838]. Chiang Yung-ching copied respectfully on the first day of the sixth lunar month in the wu-shen year [1848]._x000D_
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trans. LYSL/WKH

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