Jin Wenxiang xifu
金文翔媳妇
“Sent to Persuade”
Her Story
Wife of Jin Wenxiang, Grandmother Jia’s buyer, and so sister-in-law to Yuanyang. In Chapter 46 Jia She sets out to take Yuanyang as a concubine; when the direct approaches fail, the family is used instead. Yuanyang’s parents are away in Nanjing, so it falls to this woman to be sent in and talk her round. Yuanyang sends her back, then goes before Grandmother Jia and swears she will cut off her hair and take vows rather than go.
In Xiang Li's Hands
She paints the go-between as a beauty in a garden. Pale green gauze patterned with roundels over a deep red skirt, head lowered in profile, one hand lifted. Willow fronds and a rock behind her. Nothing in the pose admits what she has come to say.
The Calligraphy
金文翔媳妇 runs down the right in five characters — her husband’s full name plus 媳妇, “wife of,” the fullest form of a borrowed name in this block.
Connections
- Yuanyang 鸳鸯 — her sister-in-law, whom she is sent to persuade.
- Jin Wenxiang 金文翔 — her husband, Yuanyang’s elder brother and the matriarch’s buyer.
- Jia She 贾赦 — whose errand this is.
- Grandmother Jia 贾母 — the household she serves, and Yuanyang’s mistress.
Others of the same kind · servant's wife / senior serving-woman Zhou Rui jia de 周瑞家的 · Lin Zhixiao jia de 林之孝家的 · Lai Da jia de 赖大家的 · Wang Shanbao jia de 王善保家的 · Wu Xindeng xifu 吴新登媳妇 · Wang'er xifu 旺儿媳妇 · Zhang Cai jia de 张材家的 · Zheng Hua jia de 郑华家的 · Wu Xing jia de 吴兴家的 · Laixi jia de 来喜家的 · Qin Xian jia de 秦显家的 · Bao Er jia de 鲍二家的 · Liu jia de 柳家的 · Shan Daniang 单大娘 and 10 more
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
