Auspicious Cranes

On the 16th day of the first month of 1112, twenty cranes appeared over the Xuande Gate of the imperial palace in Kaifeng. The emperor — himself a serious painter — recorded the event in ink and colour on silk. He counted the cranes exactly: twenty, with two more perched on the gate ornaments. He wrote a colophon interpreting the sighting as an omen of dynastic prosperity. Fifteen years later, Huizong was captured by the invading Jurchen and died in exile. The cranes had lied. Now at Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang.