故宮書畫錄(卷八),第四冊,頁30&*故宮書畫圖錄,第十五冊,頁77-80&*周昉,德宗(西元七八0—八0四在位)時陜西長安人。字仲朗,或謂景玄。官至宣州長史,好屬文,能書,善畫道釋、人物、仕女,初效張萱,後則小異,所作人物,頗饒風姿。農曆正月十五日為元宵,舊俗是夜張燈為戲,所以也稱為燈節。本卷正描繪此一時節,庭院中,孩童拉持花燈戲耍,仕女相聚奏樂為樂之景。花燈的種類及其形式上的描繪,極為細膩,惟人物面容、衣飾與傳世所見「周家樣」不類,此卷應為後人所仿。&*Chou Fang (style names Chung-lang and Ching-hsuan) served as Senior Scribe in Hsuan-chou. He enjoyed writing essays and composing poetry, and he excelled in painting Taoist and Buddhist figures as well as female beauties. He started by studying the style of Chang Hsuan, but later made changes to develop his own style of figure painting. The fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar is called Yuan-hsiao. According to popular tradition, it is a night of hanging lanterns and is therefore called the Lantern Festival. This scroll is a depiction of this festival. Children play with lanterns in a courtyard. Ladies gather together to play musical instruments. The lanterns, highly decorated and varied in shape, have been painted in great detail. The treatment of the faces and the clothing of the figures, however, seems different from that in paintings generally accepted as representative of Chou Fang's style. This painting must therefore be copy by a later artist. &*農曆正月十五日為元宵,舊俗是夜張燈為戲,所以也稱為燈節,本卷正描繪此一時節。畫中三位女子合奏之場景,撲向母親懷抱的孩童,及桌上的跑馬燈與地上的大象花燈等細節,都與院藏另外一幅傳為李嵩之〈觀燈圖〉類似,後者保留更多明代中期唐寅、杜菫風格。兩者應該都是明中期以後蘇州畫坊的仿古作品,其特色之一即是將當時流行的母題拼湊成不同之畫作,以達到商業生產之目的。(20100710)&* The 15th day of the first lunar month is known as Yuanxiao, when in the past as today people go out at night and enjoy lanterns, hence the popular name “Lantern Festival.” This scroll depicts the event. Details here—such as the 3 ladies playing music, the child dashing to its mother’s embrace, and the running horse lantern on the table and elephant lantern on the ground—are all like another work in the Museum collection, “Viewing Lanterns” attributed to Li Song, except the latter preserves more middle Ming (1368-1644) styles of Tang Yin and Du Jin. Both were likely done in commercial Suzhou studios of the post-mid-Ming era. One characteristic is the recombination of popular motifs into different arrangements to increase production.(20100710)