An Old Chinese Garden, 1923 – Wen Chen Ming & Kate Kerby

An Old Chinese Garden – a 3-fold work of poetry, calligraphy and painting – Calligraphy and Painting by Ming dynasty artist Wen Chen Ming (Wen Zhengming); studies written by Kate Kerby; translations by Mo Zung Chung published by Chunghwa Book Company, Shanghai, China, 1923. You can see the whole book online here… The book blends Chinese aesthetics with Western scholarship. Chunghwa Publishing of Shanghai was a large publishing concern (along with the Commercial Press and Kelly & Walsh) in Shanghai in the first decades of the twentieth century. I’m afraid I do not know who Kate Kerby was except she dedicates the book to her husband Philip Kerby, the author of 1927’s Beyond the Bund (see tomorrow’s post)? Art historian Craig Clunas tells me the original Wen Chen Ming album reproduced in An Old Chinese Garden is now considered “lost” – unless anyone has it in their attic?