Firing Elixirs at Jade Grotto (detail)

Qiu Ying (style name Shifu, sobriquet Shizhou) was originally from Taicang in Jiangsu. A painter by profession, his talents were praised by Suzhou literati; the figure, landscape, and flower paintings he did were all masterfully rendered in a unique manner. His style, precise and delicate, has much of the finesse and elegance of literati painting. “Jade grotto” can be a fancy name for a cavern, but it also refers to a place where immortals and practitioners of the Dao resided. Daoists in the past believed that cinnabar could be refined by firing to make a pill of longevity or even turn into gold, hence the term “refining” or “firing” the pill of immortality. Such arts of alchemy in China actually are said to have begun as early as the Eastern Zhou period. This painting depicts immortals in a blue-and-green landscape crossing the seas to gather at the island of immortals for the elixir that had been prepared. Judging from the style of the painting, however, it is probably by a later hand spuriously given to Qiu Ying.