Zhēnjī rìlù 真蹟日錄
Daily Register of Authentic Pieces by 張丑 (Zhāng Chǒu, 1577–1635, 明, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
Zhāng Chǒu’s running connoisseur’s daybook, continuing the work of the KR3h0055 Qīnghé shūhuà fǎng of 1616. As Zhāng explains in his self-colophon, after his Shūhuà fǎng received positive reception, connoisseurs began bringing famous pieces to him for authentication; he recorded these casually as encountered, without chronological ordering — “as I see I write, no longer ranking by period,” gradually compiling them into this collection. The WYG version is the Bào Shìgōng Zhībùzúzhāi recension, which has qiēchú 切除 (excised) the 41 items duplicating the Shūhuà fǎng, retaining only the headings. The work is the principal source for the final two decades of late-Míng connoisseurship before the SòngYuán piece market’s transformation at the MíngQīng transition. The book preserves the dialogue of Zhāng’s connoisseurship and an immense roster of identifiable SòngYuán originals — Wáng Xíxī’s Pòqiāng tiè and the Cǐshì tiè, Yán Zhēnqīng’s Shūgào, Lù Jī’s Píngfù tiè, Lǐ Chéng’s Hánlín pínɡyě tú, and many others.
Tiyao
We have respectfully examined: Zhēnjī rìlù in five juàn, by Zhāng Chǒu of the Míng. The front has Chǒu’s self-note: “Shūhuà fǎng completed, connoisseurs said it was just observable; many showed me famous pieces to be corrected; I therefore casually recorded one or two of them, naming this Zhēnjī rìlù — as seen, recorded, no longer ranking by period — gradually piling into a volume.” This text is the Bào Shìgōng Zhībùzúzhāi recension. Of the entries in the original that duplicated the Shūhuà fǎng, the following — Yú Yǒngxīng’s Pòxié lùn, Wáng Yòujūn’s Húbùjiā tiè, Pòqiāng tiè, Cǐshì tiè, Xiè Sīmǎ tiè, Sīxiǎng tiè and a variant, Dàdào tiè and a variant, Zhōng Tàifù’s Kǒngmiào dǐngmíng, Cáo Bùxīng’s Bīngfú tú, Táoyuán tú, Lǐ Chéng’s Hánlín pínɡyě tú, Yán Lǔgōng’s Shūgào, Cài Míngyuǎn’s tiè, Lù Jī’s Píngfù tiè, Lǐ Xītái’s Qiānwén juǎn, Zhào Gàn’s Jiāngxíng chūxuě tú, Qián Shùnjǔ’s LínLù Tànwēi Jīnsù Rúlái xiàng, Huáisù’s Mèngyóu Tiānlǎo yín autograph, Ní Yúnlín’s Xīshān xiānguǎn xiǎofú, Wáng Qíhàn’s Tiāoěr tú, Zhǎn Zǐqián’s Chūnyóu tú, Xiānyú Bójī’s Tí DǒngBěiyuàn shānshuǐ, Tí Zhào Liǎoběn tà Lántíng hòu, Wáng Péngméi’s Jīnmíngchí tú, Liú Yuánfù’s Mòjī Qiūshuǐ piān, Huáng Zǐjiǔ’s Shānshuǐ, Guō Xī’s Xīshān qiūjì juǎn, Lǐ Tàihé’s Méirè tiè, ChǔHénán’s xiǎokǎi Xīshēng jīng, Wáng Jìngmíng’s Huìlù xiǎoyǐn juǎn, Ní Yúnlín’s Tí Huáng Zǐjiǔ huà juǎn, Gù Qīngchén’s Shū Lǐ Chéng Dúbēi kēshí tú, Yòujūn’s Hújí tiè, Sūn Zhīwēi’s Shíyīyào tú, Jùrán’s Zhuàn Lántíng tú, Wú Dàozǐ’s Bābù tiānlóng juǎn, Lǐ Lóngmián’s Guō Zǐyí dānqí jiàn huíhé tú, Táng Zǐwèi’s Dúlèyuán and Jiāngshān xínɡlǚ tú — forty-one items in all: have been excised, retaining only their headings. Where the prose has variant readings, both are kept for collation. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng 46 (1781), eleventh month.
Abstract
The Zhēnjī rìlù is the running supplement to Zhāng Chǒu’s KR3h0055 Qīnghé shūhuà fǎng. The book gathers the famous calligraphies and paintings brought to Zhāng for authentication in the years after the Shūhuà fǎng’s 1616 publication, until close to Zhāng’s death in 1635. As such it is the principal late-Míng record of identifiable SòngYuán originals and their colophon-and-seal-impression provenance. The Sìkù editors’ detailed list of the 41 duplicates excised by the Bào Zhībùzúzhāi recension is itself a remarkable catalogue of the great masterpieces Zhāng had seen — Yán Zhēnqīng’s Shūgào, Lù Jī’s Píngfù tiè, Lǐ Chéng’s Hánlín pínɡyě tú, the Wáng Xíxī fragments — confirming the immense connoisseurial reach Zhāng commanded in late-Míng Jiāngnán.
Translations and research
- Clunas, Craig. Superfluous Things. Cambridge: Polity, 1991.
- Wáng Liánqǐ 王連起. Sòng-dài shūhuà jiànbié yánjiū. Shanghai: Shanghai Shuhua Chubanshe, 2003.
- No standalone Western-language monographic study. Used as a major reference in Sòng-Yuán painting authentication.