Bunian Tu (Die Sänfte)

The event in this handscroll took place in 640, when an envoy from the Tibetan empire arrived at the Tang court in Chang'an to arrange a marriage. His king, Songtsen Gampo, wanted a Chinese princess, and the following year he got one, as Princess Wencheng was sent west over the mountains. Yan Liben shows the emperor Taizong not on a throne but carried on a litter by a cluster of palace women, which is what the Chinese title, Bunian, refers to. The envoy stands before him in patterned robes, smaller and plainer than the large seated emperor. The silk now in Beijing is almost certainly a later, faithful copy, and its surface is crowded with the red seals of the collectors who prized it over the centuries.