1644-1911

Ge Hong Moving His Residence

The subject of this painting is Ge Hong (253-333), a government official and author of the important Daoist treatise the Baopu zi (The Philosopher Who Embraces Simplicity). Ge requested a transfer of his official post to the south, to a region where an important ingredient for the elixir of immortality was to be found. However, on his way through Guangzhou to his new post, he left his family and belongings and became a recluse in the Luofu mountains, where he is supposed to have succeeded in brewing the elixir of immortality. This painting shows Ge in the process of moving south. According to the inscription, Wen Boren created this painting after a 1342 painting of the same subject by the Yuan dynasty painter Wang Meng (c. 1308-1385).