Making Sense of Xuanhe huapu

Combining the genres of review article and research article, this study discusses two publications by Amy McNair on Xuanhe huapu (preface 1120)—her translation, Xuanhe Catalogue of Paintings (2019), and a monograph on its authorship, The Painting Master's Shame: Liang Shicheng and the Xuanhe Catalogue of Paintings (2023)—while also presenting some results of my own research. It gives successive attention to three topics: (1) the institutional process that gave rise to the catalog; (2) the protocols of the catalog's inventory lists; and (3) the light that the subject-matter essays and artist biographies framing the inventory lists sheds on the authorship of the catalog. In the course of discussing the third topic, I argue against the consensus view that the practice of painting by imperial family members and palace officials was a simple extension of scholar-amateurism, seeking instead to reframe their collective practice in terms of a distinguishable palace-insider aesthetic.