The earliest version of this scroll dates from the Song dynasty. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has what might be the Song original, but it consists of only several leaves. The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art has a complete scroll copied in the Ming dynasty. Several other museums also have copies. Each of the 18 scenes corresponds, in order, to a verse of the 18 verse poem written ca. 770 CE by Liu Shang telling the story of the abduction of Cai Wenji by Central Asian nomads at the end of the Han dynasty. The titles that accompany each illustration here are the titles of the qin melody Da Hujia. Because each title is also line from the corresponding verse of the poem, the melody, poem and painting match perfectly.

View Illustration 1 (also 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 )

 
  Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1 白雲立 Bai Yunli lives in Hangzhou. His version of the scroll was based largely on the Metropolitan Museum of New York scroll as published by them in Robert A. Rorex and Wen Fong, Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, The Story of Lady Wen-Chi (New York, 1974). Currently it is possible to view the Metropolitan scroll online, together with a translation by Wilt Idema and Beata Grant (as Eighteen Stanzas for the Barbarian Reed Pipe) of the accompanying poem by 劉商 Liu Shang. The Chinese title of the scroll is Hujia Shiba Pai. (Return)