Dong Qichang 1555-1636

1. signed "name is on the letter cover", dated the ninth day of the sixth lunar month, with one seal, qi chang
2. signed "name is on the letter cover"
3. signed "name is on the letter cover", dated the twenty-eighth day of the fourth lunar month
4. signed "name is on the letter cover", dated the twentieth day of the sixth lunar month
Colophon by Fan Zhenxu (1872-1960), signed Dongxue laoren, dated yihai (1935) mid-summer, with one seal, yu qin; Zhang Daqian (1899-1983), signed Daqian Zhang Yuan, dated renwu (1942), the beginning of summer, with two seals, yuan, da qian; Gao Yihan (1885-1968), signed Gao Yihan, with one seal, gao yi han yin; Wu Jingheng (1865-1953), signed Wu Jingheng, dated thirty-first year of the republic (1942), the eighth lunar month, with one seal, wu jing heng yin

Fan Zhenxu's inscription:
Dong Siweng learnt the most from the Model Writings from the Chunhua Pavilion. My favorite work by him is the Farewell Song to a Friend Returning to the Mountains, whose brushwork is mature and unaffected. My fellow townsman Master Zhang Meiru can imitate him to the utmost resemblance, and is surpassed by nobody as a copyist of Dong's calligraphy.

Zhang Daqian's inscription:
Calligraphers of the Qing Dynasty studied Huating without exception. Yet in their striving for elegance and beauty, their work gradually became feeble. They did not know that Wenmin's breath was withheld, his brushwork profound and reaching. Thus he naturally emanated a dashing vigor through his brush-tip. Even in this brief letter written in a seemingly halfhearted manner, his breath and bone are still exceptional. This is something students of Dong would do well to know.

Gao Yihan's inscription:
As a calligrapher Huating first studied Xiangyang and later combined the merits of various masters to forge his own style. This piece, skilled to the point of fluency, must have been written when both man and calligraphy had reached old age. I hope that Master Yimin will treasure it forever.