Chen Huai

Chen Huai’s surviving scrolls suggest he never left the river towns north of Suzhou, where he painted portraits by lantern light in exchange for bowls of noodles. A single work, *Portrait of the Heavenly Master*, shows a Daoist sage whose face is half shadow and half silk-smooth ink. The door in your pocket is that scroll—flip it open and you’re staring at a man who might step out of the frame.