The picture album of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling appears in the fifth chapter of A Dream of Red Mansions. Under the guidance of Fairy Jinghuan, Baoyu travels to the Land of Illusion in his sleep. In the Department of Unlucky Women, he sees a large cabinet filled with the life judgments of unlucky women from various provinces. He then finds the cabinet in his hometown of Jinling to take out the books and look at them. There are three volumes: the main volume of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling, the supplementary volume of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling, and the supplementary volume of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling. The judgments in the picture album, like the later A Dream of Red Mansions, allow us to glimpse the author’s attitude towards the characters, as well as the complete artistic conception in arranging their fates and the development of the entire plot of the novel. This is of particular research value when the second half of the original manuscript has been lost. Many of the plot ideas in the last forty chapters of the sequel we read are based on this.
金陵十二钗图册出现在《红楼梦》第5回，宝玉在警幻仙姑的指引下梦游太虚幻境，在薄命司中看到有大橱装载着各省薄命女子的生平判词，遂找到自己家乡金陵的柜子取册观看，有金陵十二钗正册，金陵十二钗副册，金陵十二钗又副册3册。图册判词和后面的《红楼梦曲》一样，使我们能从中窥察到作者对人物的态度，以及在安排她们的命运和小说全部情节发展上的完整艺术构思，这在原稿后半已散失的情况下，特别具有重要的研究价值。在我们读的后四十回续书，不少情节的构想就是以此为依据的。
《金陵判词·黛玉宝钗》 曹雪芹
可叹停机德，堪怜咏絮才。
玉带林中挂，金簪雪里埋。
Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai
Cao Xueqin
Alas for her wifely virtue,
Her wit to sing of willow-down, poor maid!
Buried in snow the broken golden hairpin,
And hanging in the wood the belt of jade.
