Wang Ruqian

Wang Ruqian was a wealthy and well-connected salt merchant originally from Huizhou (Xin'an) who had made his name as a poet, playboy and patron of the arts, gaining fame for the lavish parties on his flower boat on the West Lake.

The late Ming was a period of drastic social and cultural change with many of the characteristic features of modernity. No area in China epitomized the modernity of the late Ming as intensely as the Jiangnan region, where literati and wealthy merchants gathered and competed for prestige. As cosmopolitan centers became more dependent on the market economy, the differences between the once separate classes of the wealthy merchant and literati were blurred and taste became the unifier of a new elite. It was in this developing social setting that the figure of Wang Ruqian a wealthy Anhui salt merchant, philanthropist and playboy gained notoriety for his pleasure boat "gardens." Situated on Hangzhou's famous West Lake, Wang's "Unmoored Garden" became a meeting place for such eminent late Ming literati as Dong Qichang, Chen Jiru, Li Yu and Qian Qianyi. Wang touted that his garden "... is everywhere and has no stopping place; the sounds of songs cover the water to the east and west." While on the surface this may appear to be the boastful claim of a merchant proud of his wealth and taste, it is also a profound insight into how late Ming intellectuals constructed and perceived space. Wang's "Unmoored Garden" is a microcosm of late Ming values spanning garden culture, and the relationship between taste, philosophy and elite status; on another level, Wang's boat reflects upon contemporary perceptions of space and the extent of modernity in the late Ming.