A FINE FAMILLE ROSE PLAQUE DEPICTING WANG ZHAOJUN, QING DYNASTYChina, 1644-1912. Exquisitely painted in bright enamels with Wang Zhaojun in a cold winter landscape with gnarled barren branches, bamboo leaves, craggy rockwork, and towering mountains partly obscured in the fog, shrouding herself in her voluminous robes, a youthful attendant walking behind her and carrying her silk-covered pipa, both with well-detailed, expressive faces of reddenedplexion.Provenance: English trade, previously in an English private estate.Condition: Very good condition with some wear and expected firing irregularities, minor fritting to edges, and a small chip to one corner.Dimensions: Size 50.5 x 32.5 cmWang Qian,monly known by her courtesy name Wang Zhaojun, was known as one of the Four Beauties of ancient China. Born in Baoping Village, Zigui County (in current Hubei Province) in the Western Han dynasty (206 BC–8 AD), she was sent by Emperor Yuan to marry Chanyu Huhanye of the Xiongnu Empire in order to establish friendly relations with the Han dynasty through marriage.The present plaque depicts Wang's journey north across the steppe.Wang Zhaojun was endowed with dazzling beauty and an extremely intelligent mind. She was adept in playing the pipa and was also a master of the ancient ‘Four Arts of the Chinese Scholar’ – the guqin, weiqi, calligraphy, and Chinese painting. Although Zhaojun was a concubine in the harem of Emperor Yuan (Han Yuandi, reigned 48-32 BC), he had never noticed her. One reason was that she refused to bribe a painter, Mao Yanshou, so his painting of her did not do her justice. As a result, when a Central Asian nomad prince named Huhanye came looking for a bride, the Emperor volunteered her (by another account she was so desperate that she volunteered herself). She then had to spend the rest of her life in the barren lands of Central Asia. When her husband died, she was married to her stepson, as custom dictated. She requested permission from Han Emperor Cheng to return home, but he refused.A set of tombs near the Inner Mongolian capital, Hohhot, is said to include the grave of Wang Zhaojun. The grave is mentioned as early as the Tang dynasty, by which time stories of Wang Zhaojun had be very popular. There are a number of poems about her. Most of them are sad, dwelling on her desire to return home. Typical is this poem by Li Bai, which at the end mentions her grave:The moon above the Han palace and land of Qin,Sheds a flood of silvery light, bidding Mingfei ("the radiant lady") farewell.She sets out on the road of the Jewel Gate,a road she will not travel back.The moon above the Han palace rises from the eastern seas,But the radiant lady wed in the west will return nevermore.On the Mongolian mountains flowers are made of the long winter's snow,The moth-eyebrowed one, broken-hearted, lies buried in the desert sand.Living she lacked the gold, and so