Collection Online as of March 28, 2023

Album of Miscellaneous Subjects, Leaf 3

early 1650s

Part of a set. See all set records

Fan Qi 樊圻

(Chinese, 1616-aft 1694)

China, Qing dynasty

(1644-1911)

Album leaf, ink and color on silk

Image: 12.6 x 17.3 cm (4 15/16 x 6 13/16 in.); Overall: 21 x 22 cm (8 1/4 x 8 11/16 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1975.22.3

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

A waterfall descends between two mountains; the series of cascades is hinted by the careful placement of intermittent rocks.

Description

Leaf number 3 evokes Wang Wei's poetic line: Sit and watch the clouds rising. Xu Fang's colophon reads: Green are the reeds, the sun not yet set; Tree foliage and mountain colors divide the lake into two halves. A solitary recluse sits upon a flat bluff, Occasionally observing white clouds rising from the mountain tops.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Artist seal: Fan Qi 樊圻. Poem by Xu Fang 徐枋 (1622–1694): Green are the reeds, the sun not yet set;/ Tree foliage and mountain colors divide the lake in two halves./ A solitary recluse sits upon a flat bluff,/ Occasionally observing white clouds rising from the mountain tops.

Provenance

Tomioka Tessai 富岡鐵齋 [1836–1924]

?-1975

(Robert G. Sawers [b. c. 1934], London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

1975-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1975.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 63, no. 2, 1976, pp. 31–71. Reproduced: p. 70, cat. no. 155 www.jstor.org

Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1980. Reproduced: cat. no. 219, pp. 288-293

Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. Reproduced: pp. 379-385

Exhibition history

Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (November 7, 1980-January 4, 1981); The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 10-March 29, 1981); Tokyo National Museum (October 4-November 17, 1982).

Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 242). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 7-July 7, 2015).

Year in Review: 1975. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 3-March 7, 1976).