Taiwan Ancient Painting FDC

Taiwan FDC
Name: Ancient Chinese Painting "Eighteen Scholars of the T'ang" by Emperor Hui-tsung, Sung Dynasty
Date of Issue: 12 September 2007

To promote appreciation of ancient Chinese art and philately, Taiwan Post is issuing a set of ten stamps (each with a denomination of NT$5.00) based on the Sung Dynasty painting "Eighteen Scholars of the T'ang" by the Emperor Hui-tsung, which is in the National Palace Museum collection. The full painting will be printed in a se-tenant block of ten stamps in two rows of five. The ten stamps are not uniform in size. Instead there are four different sizes, enabling the se-tenant block to be broken up into compositionally coherent individual stamps.

The Sung Dynasty Emperor Hui-tsung (1082-1135) was a very gifted calligrapher and painter and was especially good at landscape, flower-and-bird, and figure paintings. Refined and elegant, his style of calligraphy is called "slender gold script" and is characterized by thin yet powerful brush strokes. "Eighteen Scholars of the T'ang" depicts a boisterous and joyous party of the era's literati, with scholars touring the garden, writing poetry, playing music, drinking and feasting. They sip tea, drink wine and eat delicacies in a garden where a creek meanders amid scattered rocks, flowers, pine trees and bamboo. Servants prepare tea and wine by a square table. The table has stretchers between the legs and is decorated with aprons and spandrels. A tea set is placed on the table. Beside the table is a bamboo tea basket with a tea tray on top. A simple wooden-framed two-panel screen sits atop spandrels and shoe feet. The upper part is mullioned and the lower part paneled. The scholars sat around a very large waisted table with recessed legs, a style popular during the T'ang and Five Dynasties. This is the best of several versions of this painting.

2007 Taiwan Ancient Chinese Painting FDC (Eighteen Scholars of the T'ang)
2007 Taiwan Ancient Chinese Painting Minisheet FDC (Eighteen Scholars of the T'ang)
2008 Taiwan Ancient Chinese Painting FDC (A Hundred Deer)