Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum

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of the so-called Eight Immortals, including Lij Dongbin, Cao Cuojiu,
Zhongli Quan, Lan Caihe, Zhang Guolao, and Li Tieguai. Together,
they represent longevity and protection by divine forces.
Surrounded by these auspicious objects is a scene enclosed in a
circular frame. It depicts a beauty with two attendants coming out of
a reception hall to greet two visitors waiting on a garden terrace, one
talking while the other observing with interest a white rabbit standing
on its hind legs on a flat rock pounding an elixir of immortality
in a mortar with a pestle. This scene recreates the final episode in
Changsheng dian (The Palace of Immortality), a play written by Hong
Sheng (1645-1704) of the Qing dynasty.25 It is about the fabled love
affair of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty (r. 713-755) and his
beloved concubine, Yang Yuhuan (more commonly known as Yang
gu/fe/26). Because the infatuated emperor neglected state affairs and
allowed Yang Yuhuan's relatives to amass wealth and power, eventually
a rebellion led by one of his favourite military officials erupted.
The emperor and his household fled. Half way on the journey to
Sichuan, the escorting soldiers blamed Yang Yuhuan for causing the
downfall of the country and threatened mutiny if she was not put to
death. The distraught emperor had no choice but to comply. As the
story goes, the spirit of Yang Yuhuan, who had been a fairy banished
from the Isle of the Blessed, returned to her celestial abode. Yet, both
she and the emperor could not forget each other. After many fruitless
tries, Emperor Xuanzong was finally able to secure the service
of Yang Tongyou, a Daoist priest endowed with magical powers. It
was through his good offices that on the fifteenth night of the eighth
month the spirit of the emperor was transported to the moon and be
reunited with Yang Yuhuan.27 The beauty depicted here is, therefore,
Yang Yuhuan. The man wearing a blue robe is Yang Tongyou. Next to
him, the man in a yellow robe and holding a ruyi sceptre is Emperor
Xuanzong. Since legend claims that a rabbit is forever pounding an
elixir in the moon, its presence indicates the location where the
reunion took place.
The production of this quilt-cover top required careful planning.
Made of six handloom-woven narrow strips sewn together, the precise
alignment of the pictorial details along the edges of any two adjoining
strips suggests that the strips were sewn together before dyeing to
make up a canvas for the artwork. Both stencils and freehand sketching
(using a water-soluble pigment) would have been used to transfer
the desired motifs onto this canvas. Motifs transferred by stencils
(bamboo, grass, asters, dotted ground lines, borders with prunusblossom
pattern, etc.) were dye-resisted by means of pressing paste
through the perforations. Others were done by tracing the sketched
outlines with paste using a special applicator or a brush.28 When the
outlines of all motifs have been covered with paste, the strips would
then have been taken apart before each was dipped in the indigo
vat. The dyed and cleaned strips, with motifs mainly in a blue-andwhite
scheme, would have been sewn together again for colouring.
Once the rich array of colours, including royal blue, orange-red, light
brown, green, yellow, and black was hand-painted, enhancing the
pictorial elements, the whole composite design came alive. As well,
finer details, such as the figure's facial features and drapery folds, the
women's hair, the men's long beards and headgear, and even the fur
of the rabbit, were also all painted in with delicate lines.
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