Yang Guifei Leaving the Bath

This painting relates to the legendary love story between Tang dynasty (618–906) emperor Xuanzong and his consort, the beautiful Yang Guifei. Set in what appears to be an 18th-century southern interior, the artist depicts Yang Guifei in a fashionable dress of semitransparent red gauze. Due to the warm and humid climate in China’s southeast, local silk workshops specialized and excelled in making airy gauze garments. Yang’s nude body can be seen through the red robe as she leaves the bath. Her servant offers her a bowl of soup. The presence of a male figure would have been a breach of customary protocol; cross-dressed as a male scholar, the earrings reveal that Yang’s attendant is in fact a girl.