Each of the eight paintings in this album bears an inscription identifying an important earlier artist as the inspiration for the composition and brushwork. Wang Jian was an ardent collector of paintings and one of four friends with the surname Wang, all well-known painters in the seventeenth century who shared an interest in vigorous study and creative imitations of earlier masters, particularly artists who had become part of an orthodox lineage revered in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The inscription on the last page of the album indicates that it was produced, probably as a gift, for a certain Weihou, likely a pen name for a cultivated gentleman with discerning tastes.