绣鸾
绣鸾：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。
绣鸾
“The Embroidered Phoenix”
Her Story
Another junior maid of the matriarch’s apartments, named barely twice in the whole book and always beside 彩鸾. The two are a pair in the text as they are in their names: 彩 painted, 绣 embroidered, both fixed to 鸾, the phoenix of the pattern books. Nothing is told of her. The novel’s habit of naming even the girls it will not use is the only reason she exists to be painted.
In Xiang Li's Hands
She holds a pale green cloth up in her left hand and works at it with her right, fingers pinched on the needle, head tipped down to the seam. The one sheet here that shows a maid at work, and it takes the 绣 of her name literally.
The Calligraphy
绣鸾, low on the right, the given name alone — a two-character decorative label of the kind issued to junior maids, not a name anyone was born with.
Connections
- Cailuan 彩鸾 — the maid she is always named alongside.
- Jia Mu 贾母 — the matriarch in whose apartments she serves.
- Xiufeng 绣凤 — third of the same naming set.
Others of the same kind · maid – Grandmother Jia's apartments Yuanyang 鸳鸯 · Hupo 琥珀 · Feicui 翡翠 · Boli 玻璃 · Zhenzhu 珍珠 · Yingwu 鹦鹉 · Yingge 鹦哥 · Cailuan 彩鸾 · Xiufeng 绣凤 · Wenguan 文官
Named on these pages Cailuan 彩鸾 · Xiufeng 绣凤
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
