Depictions of Mulan with Her Family and with Her Horse in Chinese Prints

The legend of Mulan is well-known. She was the daughter who took her father’s place in the army, and after years of service, her martial colleagues were amazed to discover that their comrade was a woman. Interpretations of her action, her story and its variations have been the subject of many studies of Chinese women. Mulan is pictured in illustrated books and other printed material; nevertheless, analysis of her image has largely been neglected. This study focuses on two components of her pictorial history: First, her emotional relationship with her family in scenes of her departure from home and her return; and second, images of Mulan with her horse. Initially, in late-Ming dynasty representations, her horse, often physically disassociated from Mulan, has played a minor, passive role in domestic scenes of Mulan’s departure from home and her return home. In the late nineteenth-century, Mulan’s relationship with her horse became more personal when she was depicted as a member of the “One Hundred Beauties” genre. Finally, the portrayal of Mulan with her horse is dramatically dynamic: they both anticipate participation in battle as depicted in politically motivated advertisement calendar posters relating to the Japanese invasion of China during the 1930s.