A single running-script line breaks loose from its own grammar and keeps going, as if the brush decided the sentence was less interesting than the speed.
The scroll is attributed to Wang Xianzhi, son of the sage Wang Xizhi, and it shows the family gift at full gallop: characters leaning into each other, a few strokes doing the work of many. The ‘Mid-Autumn’ letter is one of the Three Rarities the Qianlong emperor kept in his study, and it is the most restless of them.
Scholars now think this is a later copy of a lost original, but the copy carries the fever. Running script was the invention of an age that wanted to write as fast as it thought, and no one wrote faster than the Wangs.
Object details
| Name | Mid-Autumn Letter (Zhongqiu Tie) (中秋帖) |
|---|---|
| Artefact no. | — |
| Technique | Ink on paper |
| Period | Eastern Jin dynasty (attributed) |
| Collection | The Palace Museum, Beijing |
| Source | 北京故宫博物院 |
Image © The Palace Museum, Beijing. See the original in the museum collection.