Thank you for downloading this episode of a history of the world in a hundred objects

from BBC Radio 4. This week we're roaming the globe around 2,000 years ago looking at what occupied us when we were at leisure.

We've had banqueting and gay sex in the early Roman

Empire, smoking and ceremony in North America, ball games and belief in Mexico.

Today we're with what is for me certainly one of the greatest pleasures of all looking at painting.

And this program is about a masterpiece of painting from China.

It's a scroll painted around the years 400 or 500 and it

embraces three separate art forms known in China lyrically as the three

perfections, painting, poetry and calligraphy.

As a hand scroll it was made to be viewed in private and as a fine work of art it was

cherished by emperors over hundreds of years. It's known as the admonitions of the

instructors to the court ladies, or the admonitions

scroll for short, and it's a kind of ancient guide to manners and above all to

morals for ladies of the Chinese court. It tells powerful women how to behave.

To me it's an incredibly seductive artwork, it's both delightful and frustrating at the same time.

And it tells a story of obviously a very powerful woman.

A history of the world in a hundred objects. The admonition scroll. The Admonition Scrawl, a Chinese painting from the 6th to 8th century AD.

A common theme that's emerged from the objects of this week has been the changing

views of what constitutes an acceptable pleasure.

At different times in world history, Spice has turned into vice or vice versa,

but enjoying a work of art like the admonition scroll has always been entirely acceptable, and the scroll itself carries the record of

those who through the centuries have been lucky enough to look at it and enjoy it.

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