Guan Daosheng

Guan Daosheng was a Chinese painter, calligrapher and poet of the early Yuan dynasty, credited as the most famous female painter and calligrapher in Chinese history and a prominent figure in bamboo painting. Born into a landed family in Huzhou, she married the scholar-official and artist Zhao Mengfu in 1286 and travelled with him between Dadu and the south. Her ink bamboo, unusual for a woman because the plant carried masculine associations, set bamboo within misty landscapes; the Yuan court collected her work and in 1317 gave her the title Madam of the Wei Kingdom. She died in 1319, and a handscroll of 1308 in the National Palace Museum in Taipei has a plausible claim to be hers.