万儿
万儿：浏览李湘艺术网站的红楼梦资料。本页正文暂为英文，完整译文待补充。
万儿
“Named for a Brocade in a Dream”
Her Story
In Chapter 19, bored of the opera at the Ning house, Baoyu wanders into a back study and finds his page Mingyan with a girl. He asks her age and her name. She is sixteen, and she is called Wan’er because her mother, carrying her, dreamed of a length of brocade patterned with 万 characters. Then she runs. That is her entire appearance: a name, the story of the name, and an exit.
In Xiang Li's Hands
Two sheets, opposite girls. One laughs outright, hands up at a gold headdress, an orange coat sliding off a red bodice, a faint shadow behind her. The other stands in profile, head bowed, hands folded, among sketched birds and pale chrysanthemums. The caught girl and the composed one.
The Calligraphy
Both sheets carry only 万儿, the personal name with no surname attached, which is all the novel supplies.
Connections
- Mingyan 茗烟 — Baoyu’s page, the boy she is found with.
- Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — walks in on them and asks her name.
Others of the same kind · maid – Baoyu (Green Delights / 怡紅院) Qingwen 晴雯 · Xiren 袭人 · Sheyue 麝月 · Xiaohong 小红 · Qiuwen 秋纹 · Bihen 碧痕 · Tanyun 檀云 · Qixian 绮霰 · Qianxue 茜雪 · Huixiang 蕙香 · Jiahui 佳蕙 · Zhui'er 坠儿 · Liang'er 良儿 · Chunyan 春燕 and 1 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
