Collection Online as of September 28, 2023

Xie Shichen 謝時臣

(Chinese, 1487–after 1567)

China, Ming dynasty

(1368–1644)

Handscroll; ink and light color on silk

Overall: 40.3 x 425.4 cm (15 7/8 x 167 1/2 in.)

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1975.94

Location

003 Special Exhibition Hall

Description

This scroll depicts a wind- and rainswept landscape with figures in the countryside struggling against a late summer monsoon rainstorm. Such weather was familiar to residents of the lower Yangzi delta.

Xie Shichen spent most of his life in the Suzhou area. Details of his career are scant, but his surviving works suggest that he made his living as a professional painter. This painting conveys drama and anecdotal observations, characteristic of Zhe school paintings, such as the one by Lü Wenying, CMA 1970.76.

Inscriptions

Inscription

風雨歸村圖嘉靖庚寅秋日樗仙謝時臣. [印] 謝時臣印

Inscription Translation

Artist's inscription, signature, and seal: Returning to the Village in a Rainstorm. On an autumn day, the gengyin year of the Jiajing era [1530]. Chuxian, Xie Shichen. [seal] Xie Shichen yin.

Inscription

3 additional seals unidentified.

Provenance

Dr. H. Müller, Peking [Beijing], China

?–1975

(Tseng Hsien-chi [1919–2000], Boston, MA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

1975–

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Lawton, Mary S. Hsieh Shih-Chʻên: A Ming Dynasty Painter Reinterprets the Past. Chicago: The University, 1978. cat. no. 3

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. 168, pp. 212-214

"Visions of Landscape East and West." Asia Vol. 4, No. 5 (January/February 1982): pp. 24-29. Reproduced: pp. 24-25

Greene, David B. How to Respond to Strangeness in Art: Four Studies in the Unfamiliar. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. Reproduced: fig. 3.10

Exhibition history

Hsieh shih-ch`en: a Ming dynasty painter reinterprets the past. David and Alfred Smart Gallery, University of Chicago (January 12-February 26, 1978).

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).

The Paintings of Hsieh Shih-ch'en. The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, IL (organizer) (January 11-February 26, 1978).

Visions of Landscape: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982).

China's Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta (Jiangnan). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10, 2023-January 7, 2024).