石渠寶笈三編(延春閣),第六冊,頁2737 &*故宮書畫錄(卷八),第四冊,頁135 &*故宮書畫圖錄,第十四冊,頁375-376&* 曹夔音,江蘇省江寧縣人。乾隆時以畫供奉內廷,工畫山水。生卒年不詳。 本幅畫范成大臘月村田樂府詩中的賣癡獃詞。蘇州風俗,小孩們惟恐自己癡獃,所以想把「癡獃」賣掉。因此在除夕守歲後,小孩們遊行街巷,喊賣著癡獃。 &*Illustration of Fan Ch’eng-ta’s Poem “Selling the Idiots” in the Emperor’s Calligraphy Ts’ao K’uei-yin Ch’ing dynasty Ts’ao K’uei-yin was a native of Chiang-ning in Kiangsu, and a court painter during the Ch’ien-lung period (1736-1795).The dates of his birth and death have not been recorded.He was a landscape painter, many of his works having been inscribed by the Ch’ien-lung emperor. This work is an illustration of Fan Ch’eng-ta’s “Yüeh-fu of Twelfth Month in the Village: Selling the Idiots”. There was a tradition that there were many idiots in Chekiang. Since this was considered a disgrace parents would sell them. Therefore it was the custom in Chekiang on New Year’s Eve, when seeing the old year out, for the children to go around the streets shouting “Sell your idiots, sell your idiots.”