The Lantern Festival

Six rare, intricately painted hanging scrolls collectively depict a Lantern Festival that took place in Nanjing during the late 1500s to early 1600s. The festivities conclude the Lunar New Year celebration with the intention of bringing good fortune to all. Lanterns hung on the evening of the eighth day of the first lunar month were taken down on the seventeenth day, which was celebrated as the ‘Festival of Lowering the Lanterns’. These paintings feature the Aoshan lantern mountain, a huge artificial landscape illuminated with more than 100 colorful lanterns.

Since 2022 is the Year of the Tiger, a tiger on the right side of the zone slightly below the lateral center of the lantern mountain is highlighted. This painted vignette recounts the Jin dynasty (265-420) tale of Yang Xiang, a historic exemplar of filial devotion, who mounts an attacking tiger to save her father. The saga was included in a classic text used to teach Confucian moral values: Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety. This book is believed to have been compiled by the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) scholar Guo Jujing. The death of Guo’s father prompted him to search for true stories of devoted children’s exemplary conduct and pen poems honoring their acts of devotion. The following is a translation of Guo’s verse in praise of Yang Xiang:

Deep in the mountains, [father and daughter] unexpectedly meet fierce white jaws.

With great effort [Yang Xiang] seized the ferocious [tiger in a death grip].

Delivered to safety were father and [devoted] daughter:

Breaking free of the [tiger’s] craving mouth.