In Pursuit of a Lost Southern Song Stele and Its Maker

Chinese stone stelae and their engraved surfaces have long been fruitful subjects of historical research and connoisseurship. ¹ Their potential contributions to multiple areas of historical inquiry are undeniable, due to their roles in preserving and publicizing classical texts, epitaphs, sutras, eulogies, temple certificates, shrine memorials, local landmarks, calligraphic works, and paintings, as well as imperial decrees, legal documents, and monuments to esteemed figures or events, to name most of the types of historical and cultural activity memorialized on stelae. Increased attention of late to stelae

Figure 1.

Taibai tuoxue tu bing zan 太白脫鞾圖并贊 (Picture with Eulogy of Taibai [Li Bai] Having His Boots Removed), Southern Song dynasty, ca. 1256, ink rubbing from stone stele, Dangtu county, Anhui province (destroyed in 20th century); stele rubbing ca. 18th–19th century, 5.34 × 3.28 ft. (163 × 100 cm.), National Library of China. Reproduction taken from Beijing tushuguan cang huaxiang taben huibian 北京圖書 館藏畫像拓本匯編 (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1993), 1:80.

Figure 2.

Shangu fanzhao tu bing zan 山谷返櫂圖并贊碑 (Picture with Eulogy of Shangu [Huang Tingjian] Rowing Back), Southern Song dynasty, ca. 1256, ink rubbing from stone stele, Dangtu county, Anhui province (destroyed in 20th century); stele rubbing ca. 18th–19th century, 5.34 × 3.31 ft. (163 × 101 cm.), National Library of China. Reproduction taken from Beijing tushuguan cang huaxiang taben huibian (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1993), 1:81.

in North American scholarship must be partially inspired by the breadth of human activity they encompass, for, as Patricia Ebrey puts it,

stelae as a topic has the advantage that although the stones were inscribed with words and therefore definitely convey verbal messages, they are at the same time material objects that have a visual presence and that were placed in specific locations. ²

These words suggest the attractions but also the difficulties of stelae as objects of study: in prompting considerations of their physical placement as well as attribution and function, stelae spur the examination of a wider range of human activity than is common with other types of pre-modern artifacts. For this reason, their reconstruction can present increased logistical and art historical challenges.

Rubbings or "ink squeezes" (taben 拓本, tapian 拓片) taken from stelae further compound the art-historical challenges because rubbings can be more than simple reproductions of their source stelae engravings. Highly valued as traces of a material culture that has largely disappeared, rubbings of stelae (and of other ancient artifacts), especially since the middle Qing period (beginning around the mid-eighteenth century), have taken on a heightened cultural aura that ushers them into a partially aestheticized realm, placing them in ever higher demand by historians and collectors. ³ Coveted as collector's items, stele rubbings present issues of authenticity and connoisseurship that compare generally with those occurring in the study of paintings and calligraphy, or any type of commodified entity that has inspired heavy demand and a flourishing market. For this reason, aiming to base the present study on rubbings that purportedly originate from a stele dated to the mid-thirteenth century, I begin my discussion with caveats drawn from the exacting art and science of rubbings connoisseurship.

A late Southern Song stele, now lost, serves in absentia as this paper's topic. The stele was engraved and erected a little past the midpoint of the thirteenth century, in Dangtu district 當塗縣 of Taiping prefecture 太平郡, ⁴ East Jiangnan circuit 江南東路 (modern-day Anhui), on the order of Mou Zicai 牟子 才 (d. ca. 1265, jinshi 1223), an official who had requested relocation there from the Southern Song court. ⁵ Referred to here as "Mou's stele" or "the Dangtu stele," since it seems to never have been given its own name, the stele itself was destroyed in the nineteenth or twentieth century; however at least one pair of rubbings from it remains in existence today. ⁶ Taken from the front (beiyang 碑 陽) and back (beiyin 碑陰) sides of Mou's stele, the two rubbings eulogize and portray two renowned figures of former eras, the high Tang poet Li Bai...