Fang Wanyi (1732-1779), was a Chinese poet and painter.[1][2] She married the painter Luo Ping in 1752, and painted several works both with him as well as alone.[3][4][5] Many of these works were exhibited in Beijing during her lifetime, and became well-known.[6]
Her family was from Anhui, though she moved to Yangzhou when she and her husband married.[1] Her father was named Baojian, and her grandfather, Fang Yuanying, had been a poet and politician.[1][7]
Fang Wanyi was highly-educated. She studied poetry with the respected poet Shen Dacheng.[1][7] She excelled in many skills, and gained renown as a painter, poet, and calligrapher.[1][3] There are books of her work, including one titled Poems by Bailan. One of her collections of several works, Grieving a Young Maiden, was said to be so well-known that everyone in the city could say it by heart.[1]
Around 1754, Fang Wanyi hosted a famous gathering of notable women poets, primarily members of the extended family of Luo Ping. Her guests included Luo Qiuying (Luo Ping's sister), Sun Jingyou (Luo Ping's sister-in-law), Xu Deyin, and Yuan Tang.[1][8] The gathering was painted by the artist Guan Xining, in a painting entitled Reciting Poems in the Female Quarters on a Winter Day.[8][1]
Fang Wanyi and Luo Ping created art together in their workshop, called The Thatched Hut of Fragrant Leaves.[1][6] Their marriage appears to have been quite loving, and they wrote fondly of one another and praised one another's works.[1] In their poetry, they often wrote lovingly, referring to one another by their 'style' names: Luo Ping was 'two peaks' and Fang Wanyi was 'white lotus'.[6] Their friends and colleagues even wrote of the pair's love.[1][2] Many years after Fang Wanyi's death, Luo Ping had a portrait painted; in the portrait, the elderly man holds a white lotus.[1]
