Encomium to Doctor Shen Boxin in Regular Script Image 1

Shen You, born to a prestigious family in Wuzhong (present-day Suzhou, Jiangsu), was a litterateur and a calligrapher active in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area.　

The text is an encomium presented to Shen Boxin, a prominent doctor of Chinese medicine from the same native town, as a token of gratitude for curing the calligrapher’s grandmother. It is accompanied by colophons written by quite some outstanding literati from the Yuan, Ming and Qing periods. From the Yuan, there are Gu Ying, Zhou Boqi, Chen Ji and Zheng Yuanyou, and from the Ming and Qing, Wu Kuan, Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming, Shen Deqian, Qian Zai and Gui Fu. In addition, there are rubbings of an inscription on the Shens’ ancestral hall written by Zhu Yunming and a colophon by Wen Zhengming, the original of which had already been lost for over a century by the time of Shen Qian, a descendent from generations later.

Graceful and elegant, the encomium written by Shen You in regular script suggests a steep in Ouyang Xun and Chu Suiliang together with inklings of Zhao Mengfu. On top of the artistic value of the encomium and the colophons, including those by lesser known calligraphers, the scroll presents itself as a rare piece of raw material for studying Shen Boxin’s medical practice and Shen You’s filial piety through the accounts given by the Yuan calligraphers, the Wuzhong calligraphers through the evaluation by the Ming calligraphers from the same area, and the history of the prestigious Shen family as told by the descendants from the Qing dynasty.