Soranjo, after the Original by Wang Xizhi

One Scroll of Calligraphy, National Treasure since 2023

Soranjo, after the Original by Wang Xizhi (喪乱帖, Soranjo) is a Tang-dynasty work of calligraphy at Chiyoda, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, designated a National Treasure on 27 June 2023. The quantity is one scroll, the dimensions 26.2 centimetres by 58.9 centimetres, and the owner the state, in the custody of the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

The Agency leaves the field for designation as an Important Cultural Property blank, so the work went to National Treasure without that earlier step, the twentieth such case among the properties covered here.

27 June 2023 is also the date on which the Sarashina Diary in Teika's hand was designated. Two works of calligraphy became National Treasures on one day.

The National Treasure Is Itself a Copy

What matters most here is the character of the thing designated.

The Agency records it as a copy, made in the Tang dynasty by the double-outline-and-fill technique, of a letter by Wang Xizhi, the sage of calligraphy of the Eastern Jin, who lived roughly from 303 to 361.

What is designated is the copy, not the original.

The record continues: no work in Wang Xizhi's own hand survives. The thing copied is gone.

Three copies have come up before. The Bunsei-era copy of the six realms paintings carries a prefectural listing; the 1840 copy of the Ippen biography is at the Tokyo National Museum; the reproduction of the lacquered booklet box is there too. In every case an original existed separately as a National Treasure or Important Cultural Property. Here it does not, and so the copy itself is the National Treasure.

The Name Comes from the First Words of the Text

The origin of the name is recorded as well.

The content sets down deep grief at the desecration of ancestral graves in war, and because the characters read as mourning and disorder appear in the first line, the piece is called by that name.

The first words of the text became the title. The writer gave it none.

Titles have come from various places. The sword's title transcribes an inscription; the screens of pines and flowering plants leave the artist's slot empty; the Gobu Shinkan scroll writes in a loss. This one takes the opening words of the text itself.

A term is explained too: the word rendered as book here means a model book, a copybook for practising calligraphy. That it was treated as a model is carried in the name.

Surviving Numbers Recorded Country by Country

The Agency gives a specific count of such copies.

Only nine fine Tang copies made by this technique survive: four in Japan, four in China and one in the United States, and they have long been treasured.

The figures are broken down by country. Four, four and one, nine in all.

Where old articles have claimed the oldest or the only, the Agency's records have usually offered no support. With the Yohen Tenmoku bowl no record of surviving numbers could be confirmed, and the claim was dropped. Here the count stands in the Agency's own record.

Three grounds of value are given: that the original letter is securely dated to 356, that the text is complete as a piece of writing, and that the copying is finely executed.

Seven Stages of Provenance

The route the piece took in Japan is set out in detail.

It was brought to Japan in the Nara period by an embassy to the Tang court, presented to Todaiji among the treasured possessions of Emperor Shomu, and a vermilion seal shows that it was submitted for the inspection of Emperor Kanmu.

A seal serves as evidence of who saw it. With the Sanmyakuinki, the names of scribes and officials appeared on attached slips. Small marks and scraps of paper carry the history.

The record continues: it later left Todaiji, passed from Emperor Gomizunoo to Emperor Gosai and then to the priestly prince Gyojo of Myohoin, and in 1880 was presented by Myohoin to the imperial household.

Emperor Gosai appears in the provenance of the Sarashina Diary as well. Two works listed on one day share a figure in their descent.