Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Painting

Hu Zhengyan (1580 - 1671) was a famous painter, artist, and bookman in the late period of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). He was excellent at seal cutting, drawing, and ink making, and made tremendous contributions to the experiment and promotion of dou ban yin shua (watercolor block printing ).

His book, Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Painting, a late Ming period color woodblock-printed painting manual, became the epoch-making work in printing history. This book was divided into 8 sections and each section had about 40 illustrations, with each illustration accompanied by a poetic text.

Ten Bamboo Studio Manual, another one of Hu's books, is more delicate and colorful than the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Painting. In this book, Hu used the gong hua (blanked stamping) technology, which was also invented by him.