⚠Significant ink bleed-through (show-through) from the reverse side of the pages makes background text visible throughout. The right page is printed in faded green ink; the left page features black ink within a blue border.

Edited and Evaluated by Master Li Liweng

Li Liweng is the pseudonym of Li Yu (1611–1680), a famous Qing dynasty playwright and cultural critic who oversaw the publication of the first part of this manual. His name was often kept on later editions to guarantee quality and prestige.

The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting

original: 芥子園畫傳 (Jieziyuan Huazhuan). The "Mustard Seed Garden" was the name of Li Yu’s estate in Nanjing. This manual became the most influential guide to Chinese painting in history.

The Wang Clan of Lanzhou, at Qingwei Mountain This marginal note identifies the specific family or local patron who likely owned these particular printing blocks or sponsored this edition in Lanzhou, a city in northwest China. Reprinted by the Three Carriage Tower in the Imperial Capital The "Imperial Capital" refers to Beijing. The Three Carriage Tower (Sanche Lou) was a well-known commercial bookstore and publishing house during the Qing Dynasty.

A Collected Compendium of Orchids and Cymbidiums

In Chinese art, "Lan" usually refers to the one-flower-per-stem orchid, while "Hui" refers to the multi-flower variety. Together, they represent the peak of scholar-artist refinement.

Manual of Orchids

Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting (Jieziyuan Huazhuan): The definitive instructional text for traditional Chinese painting.
Li Liweng: The literary name of Li Yu, a celebrated Ming-Qing transition intellectual.
Manual of Orchids (Lanpu): A specific section of the manual dedicated to the techniques of painting orchids.
Three Carriage Tower (Sanche Lou): A Qing-era publishing house in Beijing.
Collection of Orchid and Cymbidium Manuals (Lanhui Puji): A descriptive title for the contents focusing on various orchid species.
Wang Clan of Lanzhou (Lanzhou Wang shi): The familial group from Gansu province associated with this printing.

The first image shows the title page for the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting (Jieziyuan Huazhuan). It is printed in a distinctive faded green ink, which was a common decorative choice for specific editions of this work. The page is framed by a decorative double-line border, featuring the name of the editor Li Liweng and the publishing house Sanche Lou. This is a classic example of a Chinese woodblock-printed title page from a seminal art treatise.

The second image displays the section title page for the "Orchid Manual" (Lan Pu). It features large-scale, bold calligraphy within a blue rectangular border. This page marks the beginning of the specific volume dedicated to orchids, demonstrating the period-specific typography and the use of multi-colored borders to organize the manual's various sections.