The Painted Fan

Lovely watercolour & pencil illustrations - full of beautiful line and form. The true rulers of a mythical china "Land of the Seven Caves" are busy quarelling & are easily usurped by the ferocious Lord Shang. After conquering the land, he is content, until a soothsayer prophesies that a painted fan will be his undoing. Skeptical but uneasy, he finally declares all fans are outlawed. Travelling he sees a simple goatherd he falls in lust with and has her brought to the palace & his downfall begins with quite a few adventures for the heroine along the way. Naturally everything pans out happily but you may as well keep SOME plot mystery to look forward to, even though it's a picture book. Very fine illustrations, and an adequate supporting story.