Xuanhe shupu 宣和書譜

Xuanhe shupu 宣和書譜 "Notes on calligraphy from the Xuanhe reign" is a treatise on the critique of calligraphy written during the Xuanhe reign-period (1119-1125) of Emperor Huizong 宋徽宗 (r. 1100-1125) of the Song dynasty 宋 (960-1279). There is a sister-book to this book, the painting treatise Xuanhe huapu 宣和畫譜.

The book, whose author is not known, describes calligraphies owned by the palace treasury (neifu 內府). The text with a length of 20 juan is arranged according to calligraphic styles and covers the seal script (zhuanshu 篆書), chancery script (lishu 隸書), standard script (zhengshu 正書), cursive "running script" (xingshu 行書), super-cursive "grass script" (caoshu 草書), and the wide bafen 八分 variant of the standard script. Each style is introduced by a short chapter, and the discussed oeuvres are arranged chronologically. For each calligrapher, a short biography is presented and a list of calligraphies, and the particular master is rated by his quality.

Part of the book focuses on contemporary calligraphers like Cai Jing 蔡京 (1047-1126), Cai Bian 蔡卞 (1048-1117) or Mi Fu 米芾 (1051-1107), so that it might be assumed that these took part in the compilation. The head chapter describes calligraphies written by emperors from the Jin 晉 (265-420) to the Later Zhou dynasty 後周 (951-960), like those of Emperor Taizong 唐太宗 (r. 626-649) and Emperor Xuanzong 唐玄宗 (r. 712-755) from the Tang dynasty 唐 (618-907).

The numbers of the calligraphies owned by the palace treasury amounted to the thousands, so that the Xuanhe shupu only includes selected numbers, like 243 calligraphies by Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (303-361) from the Jin period, 89 by his relative Wang Xianzhi 王獻之 (344-386), or 28 works by Yan Zhenqing 顏真卿 (709-785) from the Tang period. The text of the Xuanhe shupu is clear and detailed, and it quotes from a lot of books that are otherwise lost, which makes it a very important source for the history of calligraphy, collecting and connoisseurship.

The Xuanhe shupu is included in the series Jindai mishu 津逮秘書, Xuejin taoyuan 學津討原, Siku quanshu 四庫全書 and Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編. In 1984, the Shanghai Shuhua Chubanshe 上海書畫出版社出版 published a modern annotated edition compiled by Gu Yi 顧逸.