Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

The ‘Four Gentlemen’ of Chinese gardens are bamboo, orchid, plum blossom, and chrysanthemum. Bamboo represents tenacity, uprightness, and humility, as it has a hollow heart and grows upright. The combination of bamboo and prunus blossom is a typical theme in Chinese painting, appearing around the 10^th century.

One of the most popular orchids in the flower trade today is Phalaenopsis, or the moth orchid. Phalaenopsis features thick and fleshy leaves, rather than the more usual linear ones, and flowers resembling moths in flight. One of the other widely planted orchids in China are Cymbidium georingii, or ‘spring orchids’. The linear leaves have been greatly admired and frequently depicted by Chinese artists.

There are more than 90 species of plum blossoms in China. In Chinese painting, this plant is usually represented with clustered flowers and with five petals on small branches or gnarled trunks.

As one of the favourite subjects in Chinese flower painting, the flowers of chrysanthemum have attracted attention from both artists and viewers, while the leaves with toothed edges are rarely represented faithfully in painting.

Chrysanthemum and bee (EAX.564)    Autumn chrysanthemum (EA2000.154)    Blue-and-white dish with prunus tree and poem (EA1978.836)

Potted orchid and scholar's rock (EAX.5345.f)    Plum and Bamboo: The Double Elegancies (EA2011.52)    Bamboo on rock (LI2022.401)