Bei Jing Wang Fei
北静王妃
“The Second-Highest Seat”
Her Story
The consort of the Prince of Beijing, whose husband is the family’s great protector at court. She appears in Chapter 71, at Grandmother Jia’s eightieth birthday, and only there.
The days of the celebration are parcelled out by rank. Hers is the day of the princely houses. She comes to the Rong mansion with the Dowager Consort of Nan’an and several titled ladies of long-connected houses; Grandmother Jia and her women receive them in full dress by grade. The two upper tables are the southern and northern consorts, then the rest in order. When the play list is carried in, the Dowager Consort of Nan’an declines once and chooses an auspicious piece; the Princess of Beijing declines and chooses one as well.
Nan’an asks to see the girls, and Tanchun, Baochai, Baoqin, Daiyu and Xiangyun are brought out and praised and given rings and scented bracelets. 北静王妃也有 五样礼物 — the Princess of Beijing had five gifts too. The novel does not say what they were.
Nan’an then pleads illness and leaves; the Princess of Beijing sits a little longer and takes her leave as well. She is given no face, no age, no line of speech.
In Xiang Li's Hands
The most sumptuous sheet of the eight. She stands full length and frontal, young, in a gold phoenix crown with kingfisher-blue ornaments and coral drops, a leopard-spotted fur mantle falling from both shoulders over an ivory court robe banded with blue, yellow and red cloud brocade, hands folded quietly at the waist. The background is a saturated wine-purple worked with ghost damask flowers — the only fully coloured field in this group. Given a woman the novel describes not at all, the painting answers with nothing but clothes and rank, and a face too young to have opinions yet.
The Calligraphy
北静王妃, four characters down the right — her husband’s princedom entire and then her rank, with no surname and no personal name, exactly as the novel has her.
Connections
- 北静王水溶 Prince of Beijing — her husband, the family’s patron at court.
- Jia Mu 贾母 — whose eightieth birthday is the one occasion that brings her.
- 南安太妃 Dowager Consort of Nan’an — seated beside her, and the one who asks to see the girls.
- Jia Tanchun 贾探春 · Xue Baochai 薛宝钗 · Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 — among the five girls to whom she gives her five gifts.
Dream of the Red Chamber
Xiang Li painted all 413 characters of the novel between 1975 and 1985, the first person to complete the entire cast. See the whole collection · Chinese Empresses
