The Inscription of Remnant Things: Zhang Dai’s “Twenty-Eight Friends”

This essay investigates literary approaches to objects in the wake of dynastic transition by examining Zhang Dai’s (1597–?1684) inscriptions on his family’s possessions. Zhang exploits the formal conventions of inscription (ming)¬¬—“praise” and “admonition”—to reconcile the imperatives of remembrance with pointed moral judgments, working to redeem Ming practices of connoisseurship, while assessing their imbrication in the destruction of inter-dynastic war. In doing so, he reimagines the literary conceit of “friendship” with things. Late Ming collectors had personified objects as “friends” to model an empathetic understanding for, or eccentric obsession with their belongings. Zhang Dai reconsiders the implications of this posture amid the ruins of the fallen dynasty, casting the object as a witness to historical trauma, one that observes and critiques the failings of its human custodians.