Listening-to-the-Rain Studio

A descendant of an illustrious family of painters, Wang Chen upheld the literary-man's style of painting in the second half of the 18th century. Here, near the end of his life, he has depicted the garden pavilions of a wealthy collector, Cha Ying, in a spare and reserved manner. There is no one in the garden, but the scroll itself suggests a world of high-minded pursuits among China's political elite. The four characters of the title were written by the scholar and official Sun Hsing-yen (1753-1818) in seal script, for which he was famous. The first text (colophon) following the paintings is an essay on Cha Ying's garden by Pi Yüan (1730-97), governor in 1793 of Hupei and Hunan provinces. Sun Hsing-yen had earlier served as Pi Yüan's secretary. There are seventeen additional colophons, each by a different hand.