Yang Xi
Although no autograph copies of Yang Xi's famous calligraphy have survived, one well-documented stone rubbing version of the revealed "Huangting jing" (黃庭經, Yellow Court Scripture) has been given special attention. The Song dynasty connoisseur and critic Mi Fu (1051-1107) analyzed four manuscripts of the "Huangting jing", and said the best one was written on a silk scroll with a provenance that he traced back to the early 8th century. Mi disagreed with a former owner Tao Gu (陶穀, 903-970) who said that Wang Xizhi wrote the manuscript, and concluded it was a superb example of calligraphy from the Six Dynasties period. The Ming dynasty calligrapher and painter Dong Qichang (1555-1636) was so impressed by the Mi Fu manuscript that he made a copy, recommend it as the best model for studying "kaishu" script, and included it as the first example in his classic "Xihong tang fatie" (戲鴻堂法帖, Calligraphy Compendium of the Hall of the Playful Goose). Dong's colophon attributed the calligraphy to Yang Xi himself and described it as "the traces of a holy immortal" (Ledderose 1984: 262-263, who calls Dong's attribution to Yang "extremely optimistic").
Elizabeth Lucar
In a work published in 1904, D.N. Carvalho referred to an essay on the subject of calligraphy written by Elizabeth Lucar in 1525, at the age of 15, entitled "Curious Calligraphy". This, he claimed, was the first English essay on that subject, and this claim has been repeated elsewhere. However the bibliographic or manuscript original of this supposed work "Curious Calligraphy" is not cited or apparent, and the term 'calligraphy' itself appears anachronistic for English usage of that date. Ballard, in his 1752 Memoir of Elizabeth Lucar, does not mention an essay but described her as 'a curious calligrapher'. It is possible that Carvalho, reading the line of her epitaph 'She wrought all Needle workes that women exercise', interpreted it to mean 'she wrote (of) all needle workes'. The duality of meaning of 'wrought' and 'wrote' has been recognized elsewhere, but in either sense, that line may only mean that she herself delineated the patterns which she afterwards rendered in needlework. The line 'Three manner hands could she write, them faire all' does however indicate that she could write beautifully in three different scripts.