Xiaojiu'r
小鸠儿
“Little Dove”
Her Story
Younger sister of Chunyan 春燕, from the family of servant women given plots of the Garden to tend. She is pulled into the row over washing-water that sets her mother and aunt against the young actress-maids in Chapter 59. That is all of her: a family, a name that means a small dove, and a quarrel she did not start.
In Xiang Li's Hands
Two sheets, and they are not the same age. One is a child sprawled across a rock, finger at her lip, a white kitten with a red ribbon beside her. The other is a girl grown taller in purple and crimson, hand to her mouth, three doves overhead in colour and more ghosted behind her in pale outline and dotted flight-lines. The name is only painted once.
The Calligraphy
Both sheets are inscribed 小鸠儿, diminutive and 儿 together — a child called after a bird, with no given name and no surname offered.
Connections
- Chunyan 春燕 — her elder sister, of Green Delights.
- Mother He 何婆 — their mother, one of the old women farming the Garden’s plots.
Others of the same kind · maid – Yingchun, Tanchun, Xichun, Li Wan, Xiangyun Siqi 司棋 · Xiuju 绣橘 · Lianhua'r 莲花儿 · Shishu 侍书 · Cuimo 翠墨 · Xiaochan 小蝉 · Ruhua 入画 · Caiping 彩屏 · Cai'er 彩儿 · Suyun 素云 · Biyue 碧月 · Cuilü 翠缕 · Baoqin 抱琴 · Xiaoque 小鹊 and 5 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
