Dai Quan
戴权
“Great Power”
His Story
Chief eunuch of the Da-ming Palace, and the man who sells offices. In Chapter 13, with Qin Keqing dead and Jia Zhen wanting his son’s name to read better on the funeral banners, Dai Quan calls in person to condole and the business is done in the same breath. Three commissions in the Imperial Guard are going; two are gone already, one of them at fifteen hundred taels. For friendship’s sake Jia Rong’s costs twelve hundred, paid to his house direct. His name reads 大权, great power.
In Xiang Li's Hands
The only one seated. He fills a chair frontally in mauve-purple, a gold crane roundel at the chest, blue key-pattern borders at cuff and hem. One hand holds a large red card, the other a string of beads. The face is smooth, beardless and unlined. Power painted as furniture.
The Calligraphy
戴权 in two heavy characters at the right, the bare name without the office 掌宫内相 that gives it its weight, and with the pun on 大权 left audible.
Connections
- Jia Zhen 贾珍 — buys the rank from him for his son.
- Jia Rong 贾蓉 — made an officer of the Imperial Guard on paper.
- Qin Keqing 秦可卿 — whose funeral the purchased title was meant to decorate.
Others of the same kind · eunuch / palace Xia Bingzhong 夏秉忠
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
