In the history of ancient Chinese paintings， works of women paint-ers have been regarded as a decoration of the painting field dominatedby male painters. In most works on painting history， women paintersand their works receive almost no mention. The simple and repetitiverecords about them only appear in more specialized books. From theangle of paintings， the number of their works extant today is less thanone thousand and most of them were created in the Ming and Qingdynasties.
The Palace Museum collects about 250 works of ancient womenpainters. Among them， quite a few are masterpieces of representativepainters. From the collection， we could catch a glimpse of the mainfeatures of ancient Chinese women painters' works.
Before we enter the world made up of these works by womenpainters， a book is to be mentioned. That is Yutai Huashi （PaintingHistory of Jade Terrace）， the first painting history on works of womenpainters in China， by Tang Shuyu， a scholar in the Qing dynasty. Thebook divides the women painters from ancient times to the late Qingdynasty into the following four categories： imperial consorts， famousladies， concubines and courtesans. This division significantly promotesour understanding of ancient women painters' works. But so few worksof imperial consorts are handed down to posterity that they have notkept time continuity. Therefore， substantial content is lacking if im-perial consorts could be counted as a painter group. At the same time，famous ladies and concubines share a lot of common ground in theaspects of painting inheritance and technique expression. As a result，from the angle of actual composition of painter groups and expres-sion style of their works， ancient women painters could be dividedinto two creative subjects： boudoir and courtesan painters.