Imperial Poem on One of the Forty Views of the Yuanmingyuan in Running Script

This calligraphic rubbing features a poem composed by the Qianlong emperor in 1744 as one of the “Imperially Composed Poems on the Forty Views of the Garden of Perfect Clarity” (Yu zhi Yuanmingyuan sishi jing shi). Each of the forty poems consists of a title, prose text, and a poem. Originally, the poems were written in the running-script style of the emperor by the then-Minister of the Board of Works, Wang Youdun (1692–1758). Each poem was then paired with a painting of a section of the imperial garden, and they were bound together in an album in 1747. The text, revered because it was associated with the emperor, was later engraved in stone, from which this rubbing was taken using indigo ink rather than the conventional black ink. The engraved characters, which appeared white in the rubbing, were subsequently hand-painted in gold for a lavish effect.