Доклады Международного конгресса ИИСАА. Т. 1

III. Far East, South and South-East Asia / Дальний Восток, Южная и Юго-Восточная Азия 592 Proceedings of the International Congress on Historiography and Source Studies of Asia and Africa.Vol. I. 2020 to note that the objects on these two pictures, including women and well-wishing attributes, have a match. This is especially well seen in clothes patterns, hairstyles and elements of clothes. On the right picture: the woman on the left is holding a board with Chinese chess xiangqi 象棋 , whereas the woman on the right is holding two bound picture scrolls hua 畫 . On the left picture: the woman on the left is holding a musical instrument qin 琴 wrapped in a silk cover, the woman on the right is holding books shu 書 in a case. These symbolic objects pronounced together are qin qi shu hua 琴棋書畫 implying a wish for the owner to become an educated official or a noble. Nobility was firmly associated with learning, names of the objects mean ‘four arts of a Chinese scholar’ siyi 四藝 : musical instrument, chess, calligraphy and painting. MAE No.675–48/3 (fig. 3) A picture based on the plot of the classic Chinese novel “Water Margin” 水滸 傳 , representing a vertical image with a composition divided into two parts. There is a title of the picture in the right-hand upper corner: “Song Jiang is dispatching people to act as if offering incense and pacify Wang Can” 宋江差人假辦上香平 王千 1 . The picture shows two scenes from the novel, there is no numeration or titles of the scenes. There is a description of the scene in the upper part of the picture: Young warrior Yan Qing 燕青 is shown in disguise of a girl; beside him there is a beautiful maiden warrior Hu Sanniang 扈三娘 (the picture features characters 戶三娘 ); Song Jiang 宋 江 wearing a hat with pheasant feathers and a long imperative tablet is sitting at the table to the left; Li Kui 李奎 is standing in front of him to the right in a combative theatrical pose with a weapon on his shoulder; to the left there is a man in a combative pose with a fan in his right hand, his name is not specified. Poses of two characters reveal connections to stage performance of this story. The description of the scene in the lower part of the picture: Hu Sanniang is offering a teapot (probably, this is a fragrant incense) to Wang Can (most likely, the name of this character in the novel is Wang Ying 王英 ), who is sitting at the table laden with food. Another girl, probably, a servant, is pulling away Yan Qing disguised in a woman gown at his sleeve. This print has no workshop label, its stylistics and colouring enable us to attribute its production to one of the eight large workshops “Dongdaxing laodian” 東大興老店 . We did not manage to find an episode with Yan Qing and Hu Sanniang in the novel “Water Margin”, this scene requires further research, probably, there existed 1 Both full and simplified characters are used in inscriptions on folk-art pictures under study, which is characteristic of folk epigraphy. In this article, full characters are provided everywhere.