Ancient Chinese legal manuscript name scroll. Copying the Orchid Pavilion Preface

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Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: The "Lanting Preface" is a draft of a poetic preface written and calligraphed by Wang Xizhi, a great calligrapher of the Eastern Jin Dynasty over 1,600 years ago. It records the grandeur of the "Xiuqi" ceremony held at Shanyin in Kuaiji (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang) at that time. According to the customs of the era, on the third day of the third lunar month each year (before the Wei Dynasty, it was the "ji" day of the first decade of the third month), people would go to the water's edge to play and pick orchids to ward off bad luck, a practice known as "Xiuqi." On the third day of the third lunar month in several years of the Yonghe era (March 3, 353 AD), Wang Xizhi, along with famous scholars of the time such as Xie Yong and Sun Chuo, gathered with 41 others at Lanting to perform the Xiuqi ceremony. They reclined by the flowing water, drank wine, and recited poetry with great enthusiasm. When they were drunk and the poetry was exhausted, Wang Xizhi used a mouse-hair brush and silk paper to record this elegant Xiuqi ceremony. This is the origin of the "Lanting Preface," which was later revered as the "Heishu" (running script) masterpiece "Lanting Preface." The "Lanting Preface" is Wang Xizhi's masterpiece. It is said that the next day, after Wang Xizhi sobered up, he rewrote the "Lanting Preface" several times, but none were as brilliant as the original draft. Later, this scroll of the "Lanting Preface" was always treasured by the Wang family descendants.
The "Lanting Preface" is a draft of a preface written by Wang Xizhi on the third day of the third lunar month of the ninth year of the Yonghe era (March 3, 353 AD) at a "Xiuqi" banquet with other literati. The full text consists of 28 lines and 324 characters, with elegant and refined prose and vigorous, flowing calligraphy. Later generations praised it as "the script that changed the ancient style of the 'Right Military Officer' (Wang Xizhi's courtesy name). Its majestic and graceful charm is natural, hence it has been regarded as a model for teachers of calligraphy throughout history and antiquity." It was hailed as the "Heishu masterpiece of the world." For thousands of years, it has become a classic model that calligraphers have studied and emulated in their hearts and hands.