Blanc éclatant de nuit

This small square of paper is a portrait of a real horse. Around the year 750 Han Gan painted Night-Shining White, a favourite charger of Emperor Xuanzong, whose court in Tang China was one of the richest the world had seen. The horse is tied to a post and clearly wants none of it, eyes rolling, nostrils flared, hooves lifting as if to bolt. Its name says the coat was so pale it seemed to glow in the dark, and stories of the time held that such steeds came from Central Asia and sweated blood. Everything crowding the paper around the animal came later. Over the centuries owners kept adding their seals and inscriptions, among them an emperor of the Southern Tang and, much later, the Qianlong Emperor, until the little drawing sat in the middle of a scroll several metres long.