The Gooseberry-Moth (Phalæna Wauaria), The Gooseberry-Tree (Ribes uva crispa) (1773)
鹅莓
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- slightly upright 1.25 : 1
First Look
搜尽奇峰打草稿。
—— 清·石涛《苦瓜和尚画语录》
Exhaust the strange peaks, and then make the sketch.
Slightly taller than wide; the eye lands above centre. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find the darkest small patch: the whole tonal order is measured from there.
Name and Thing
Only the genus Ribes is given; species-level names came later. The Chinese name 鹅莓 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 4.3% of the sheet, foliage 10.6%, the cast amber with a second note of red. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Fruit plates pair the whole fruit with a section: the outline identifies the variety, the cut reveals skin thickness, core size and seed arrangement — the evidence of registration.No colour group is recorded. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
Composition
The sheet is slightly tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 19% of the sheet, centred below centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
Eighteenth-century plates are mostly copper engraving: hatched lines for shadow, then hand-colouring by another hand. Take a loupe to three places: petal edge, leaf vein, caption. An unbroken line means engraving; colour crossing the outline means a hand. If you mean to copy it: take its skeleton, its margins and the order of its colours; the burin's hatching is the language of copper — suggest it with pencil density, do not imitate it stroke for stroke.
Poetic Resonance
柴门杂树向千株，丹橘黄甘此地无。
—— 唐·杜甫《寒雨朝行视园树》
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the fruit becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
In China the pomegranate means many sons, the peach long life, the orange good fortune; in Europe the apple is temptation and knowledge, the grape abundance and sacrifice. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.
Season and Place
Late summer into autumn, variety by variety. Temperate fruits came mostly from Eurasia, later from the Americas. Nineteenth-century nurseries printed varietal albums for trade and exhibition: every fruit on the page was a saleable claim. The year 1749 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The bud and the ripe fruit on one branch tell the season; the name in the title often tells the journey.
The Book and the Hand
“Benjamin Wilkes” carries only Benjamin Wilkes's name. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
What to Take Away
If you keep one line, keep Guo Xi's: from afar its momentum, up close its texture. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1749 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
The Gooseberry-Moth (Phalæna Wauaria), The Gooseberry-Tree (Ribes uva crispa) (1773) is plate 35, from Benjamin Wilkes, drawn by Benjamin Wilkes. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: English, ?-1749.
