The Yuan dynasty was the first time in Chinese history that the entire land was ruled by non-native ethnic groups. Some Chinese subjects from the previous Sung dynasty refused to accept this new reality and expressed in their painting and calligraphy a form of nostalgia for the old days. Ch'ien Hsuan (ca. 1235-1307) is a typical example. A Sung civil service candidate, he came to enjoy the elegant life of upper-class society in the Southern Sung capital of Hangchow. With the destruction of the Sung by the Mongols, however, he burned his Confucian robes and his writings, and he settled in Wu-hsing (Chekiang province) as a professional painter. On the surface, the subject of his "Autumn Melons" has auspicious undertones--the buyer of the painter wishing for many descendants (just as a melon has many seeds). However, Ch'ien's poem on the work contains a reference to growing melons by the Marquis of Jang, a famous recluse in the Eastern Han period (25-220). Thus, behind the fine and attractive style lies a scholar-artist "left over" from the Sung who rejects the new dynasty in favor of the ideals of reclusion and antiquity.