The Ming novel Jinpingmei 金瓶梅 contains numerous references to late Ming culture and society, which can be extremely challenging when the novel undergoes interlingual translation. The present paper presents a descriptive study of the treatment of cultural references in two English translations of Jinpingmei, with a particular focus on the translators’ choices and employed strategies for rendering the aforementioned references. Based on Toury’s paradigm of descriptive translation studies, the present study employs a mixed-methods design, combining qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The study mainly addresses three topics: How cultural references are treated in the two English translations of Jinpingmei; translator tendencies in rendering cultural references; and the possible reasons underlying these tendencies. The findings indicate that the two translators employed numerous strategies ranging from omission to complete retention of cultural references. Egerton demonstrated a tendency to use more domesticating strategies, whereas Roy demonstrated a tendency to employ more foreignizing strategies. The tendencies of the two translators related to rendering cultural references were largely influenced by differing translation philosophies, expectations regarding targeted readerships, and sociohistorical contexts in which the translations emerged. Egerton’s tendency toward domestication diluted the late-Ming cultural atmosphere of the original work, improved the fluency and readability of the translation, and improved the accessibility of the translation for target-language readers. Roy’s tendency toward foreignization led the translation to have an exotic feel and caused the cultural heterogeneity to be observable, which can enable target readers to learn more about the cultural knowledge and history of the Ming dynasty.