Collection Online as of April 2, 2023

Album of Miscellaneous Subjects, Leaf 8

山水花鳥圖冊

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 1975.22.8

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The rock changes from ocher to green deepening into azurite blue accented with delicate dots of malachite green.

Description

Leaf 8 Li Bing's colophon reads: Maple leaves drift in the wind, the autumn gusts bracing, Hibiscus flowers steeped with water, the evening breeze light. The moonlight's slanting beams shine upon dreaming lovers. No wonder that pair of fowl should dream of their absent partners.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Artist seal: Fan Qi 樊圻. Poem by Li Bing 李炳 (17th century): Maple leaves drift in the wind, the autumn gusts bracing,/ Hibiscus flowers steeped with water, the evening breeze light./ The moonlight's slanting beams shine upon dreaming lovers./ No wonder that pair of fowl should dream of the absent partners.

Inscription Remark

The poem is an allusion to a Ming Play, Yuan Yang Meng 鴛鴦夢, by Ye Xiaowan 葉小纨 (c. 1613-c. 1657), in which two separated lovers can meet each other only in their dreams.

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 Gallery Rotation (Gallery 122). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 23-October 27, 2003).

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).