The Scripture of the Way and Its Virtues, in the Calligraphy of Zhao Mengfu

Yuan dynasty (1279�1368), Yanyou period (1314�20)

Calligraphy by Zhao Mengfu (1254�1322) in 18 or 19 small regular-script characters per column, dated 1316; text copied by Gu Xin (act. late 13th�early 14th century) and engraved by Wu Shichang (act. late 13th�early 14th century) in 1318

Album of 50 leaves, ink rubbed on yellow paper, accordion-style mounting between top and bottom wooden boards; overall dimensions of album: 31.7 x 17.0 x 2.6 cm; each leaf: approx. 31.6 x 17.0 cm; each rubbing panel: approx. 23.9 x 12.9 cm

Date of rubbing not given, probably late Yuan dynasty (1279�1368)

Inventory number: Shanta 546

The Daode jing (The Scripture of the Way and Its Virtues), a canonical text associated with philosophical Daoism, is relatively concise with about 5,000 characters in 81 short aphoristic sections.

Zhao Mengfu was also one of the preeminent calligraphers and painters of the Yuan dynasty and is known to have made several complete transcriptions of the Daode jing in his exquisite small xiaokai (regular-script) calligraphy.� The piece he executed in 1316 was traced by Gu Xin and engraved by Wu Shichang on a set of 10 stone tablets two years later.� They were housed in the White Cloud Monastery, the preeminent Daoist abbey of Beijing, where the rubbings in this album were presumably made between 1318 and the fall of the Yuan dynasty in 1368.� The stones incised with Zhao Mengfu's writing are of considerable inscriptional and historical importance as one of eleven extant engravings of the Daode jing made between the early eighth and early fourteenth centuries that can be used as comparative material with transmitted versions of this canonical text in other media.