Shizhuzhai Jianpu, Ten Bamboo Studio Catalogue of Letter Paper, was first printed in late Ming dynasty in 1644 or 1645 by Hu Zhengyan . Hu owned and operated the Ten Bamboo Studio , which pioneered and perfected the Dou Ban and Gong Hua woodblock printing methods. These printing techniques were instrumental to later publications in colour. The Shizhuzhai Jianpu excels as a book of colour printing because of the quality of its tone relations and in the closeness of its reproduction to brush and painting techniques.
The work is divided into eight categories: birds, plums, orchids, bamboos, fruit, stones, ink drawings (round fans) and miscellany. Great skill is required to achieve a convincing result, but the beautiful gradations of colour in this work have led to its reputation as "perhaps the most beautiful set of prints ever made".
In 1934, Lu Xun , one of the most important figure in modern Chinese literature, and Zheng Zhenduo , another influential leader in literature, began to republish Ten Bamboo Studio Catalogue of Letter Paper, based on an original print. Rongbao Zhai , a renowned Chinese publisher with over 300 years of history, was hired to reprint the book using the methods perfected by Ten Bamboo Studio. The first reprinting took more than seven years, finally completed in 1941. Few copies from the first reprint survived World War II, and the subsequent civil war. In 1952, Zheng, who had by then become the head of the Cultural Relic Bureau, oversaw the second republication. He wrote the forewords for the reprint, in addition to the afterword he penned in 1941.
Another example from the 1952 edition is part of the British Museum collection and published in the exhibition catalogue The Printed Image in China: from the 8th to the 21st Centuries. There are about 300 copies were produced in the 1952 edition.
Beijing Rongbao Zhai Xin Ji Shi Jian Pu was first published in 1951. Due to nationalisation of Rongbao Zhai , the publisher, very few copies were printed. It was subsequently reprinted in 1953, 1955, and 1957. Since its founding in 1627, Rongbao Zhai has specialised in woodblock prints, alongside trading art supplies. In 1930s, Rongbao Zhai printed the highly prized Beiping Jian Pu , and the Ten Bamboo Studio Catalogue of Letters, with Lu Xun and Zheng Zhenduo serving as joint editor-in-chief for both books.
The 1955 edition Beijing Rongbao Zhai Xin Ji Shi Jian Pu consists of 80 letter papers designed by some of the most famous artists of the time, depicting various themes, including flowers, landscapes, animals, and portraits. 32 letter papers feature paintings by Qi Baishi. He also wrote the title of the book at the age of 91. All designs were carefully chosen from Rongbao Zhai’s extensive archive of letter papers, accumulated over 300 years.
Beijing Rongbao Zhai Xin Ji Shi Jian Pu was printed in the traditional Chinese colour printing methods—Dou Ban and Gong Hua—which could faithfully reproduce the vigour of the brush strokes, which are arguably the essence of Chinese paintings. Dou Ban is a multi-colour printing technique making use of multiple carved woodblocks, sometimes as many as seventy different blocks, to create one single multi-colour image. Gong Hua is the use of an uninked, imprinted block to emboss designs onto papers, allowing highlights on water or plants that are otherwise impossible to create with other woodblock printing methods.
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