"Sullivan recounts the story of the production of this important painting, evoking the mood of the peaceable kingdom in the years before conquest by the newly established Song Dynasty in 975 - a disaster that Han Xizai did not live to see. As the first scholar to include in his discussion nearly all the known versions of this famous scroll, Sullivan demonstrates how the life of a great painting can be extended through copies and reinterpretations into later centuries."--BOOK JACKET.