To promote appreciation of ancient Chinese art and philately, Taiwan Post is issuing a set of ten stamps (each with a denomination of NT$5.00) based on the Sung Dynasty painting "Eighteen Scholars of the T’ang" by the Emperor Hui-tsung, which is in the National Palace Museum collection. The full painting will be printed in a se-tenant block of ten stamps in two rows of five. The ten stamps are not uniform in size. Instead there are four different sizes, enabling the se-tenant block to be broken up into compositionally coherent individual stamps. The Sung Dynasty Emperor Hui-tsung (1082-1135) was a very gifted calligrapher and painter and was especially good at landscape, flower-and-bird, and figure paintings. Refined and elegant, his style of calligraphy is called "slender gold script" and is characterized by thin yet powerful brush strokes. "Eighteen Scholars of the T’ang" depicts a boisterous and joyous party of the era’s literati, with scholars touring the garden, writing poetry, playing music, drinking and feasting. They sip tea, drink wine and eat delicacies in a garden where a creek meanders amid scattered rocks, flowers, pine trees and bamboo. Servants prepare tea and wine by a square table. The table has stretchers between the legs and is decorated with aprons and spandrels. A tea set is placed on the table. Beside the table is a bamboo tea basket with a tea tray on top. A simple wooden-framed two-panel screen sits atop spandrels and shoe feet. The upper part is mullioned and the lower part paneled. The scholars sat around a very large waisted table with recessed legs, a style popular during the T’ang and Five Dynasties. This is the best of several versions of this painting.
(1) First Day Cover in large size to be sold at NT$3.00 apiece. (2) Folder especially prepared for the stamps to be sold at NT$8.00 apiece. (3) Folder with crystal mount for better protection of the stamps to be sold at NT$8.00 apiece. (4) Loose-leaf stamp album page with plastic cover to be sold at NT$16.00 apiece. (5) Maximum card to be sold at NT$75.00 a set. (6) Pre-cancelled First Day Cover affixed with a complete set of stamps to be sold at NT$ 53.00 apiece. (7) Pre-cancelled maximum card comprising 10 stamps to be sold at NT$ 125.00 a set. (8) Sung arts stamp folio with a collection of 4 stamps of Sung Dynasty Calligraphy and Painting Postage Stamps released on August 4, 2006 and 10 stamps of this issue to be sold at NT$200.00 a set. To purchase relative stamps, the public can go directly to the post office branches, or order on line at http://stamp.post.gov.tw
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