Collection Online as of August 15, 2022

Orchid Pavilion Gathering

1777

Soga Shōhaku 曾我蕭白

(Japanese, 1730-1781)

Japan, Edo period

(1615-1868)

Hanging scroll; ink on silk

Painting: 122.7 x 55.7 cm (48 5/16 x 21 15/16 in.); Mounted: 197.4 x 58.8 cm (77 11/16 x 23 1/8 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1979.53

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The Buddhist temple Bairinji in Kurume City, Fukuoka prefecture, Japan, and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, own compositions by the same artist on the same theme.

Description

This painting depicts a famous gathering that took place in China in AD 353 to celebrate the Spring Purification Festival, also known as the Double Third Festival, as it takes place on the third day of the third lunar month. The host invited everyone to the Orchid Pavilion to compose poetry and drink wine. Guests floated wine cups down a nearby creek, and where they landed, people had to drink the wine and compose a poem.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Inscribed upper right: Sixth year of An'ei (1777) mid-winter, Soga Shohaku Seal: Dasokken Shohaku Seal: Unread

Provenance

?–1979

(Toyobi, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

1979–

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1979." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 3 (1980): 58–99. Reproduced: cat. no. 120, p. 93; Mentioned: cat. no. 120, p. 98 www.jstor.org

Cunningham, Michael. “Painting the Wind: A Mid-Fifteenth Century ‘Suibokuga.’” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 7 (November 1985): 363–377. www.jstor.org

"Thoughts on a Group of Deity Sculptures at the Oiso Takaku Shrine." Kokka 國華 1312 (2005). Reproduced: pl. 4

Soga Shōhaku: burai to iu yuetsu : tokubetsu tenrankai [曾我蕭白 : 無頼という愉悦: 特別展覧会 = Shōhaku show]. [Kyoto]: Kyōto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, 2005. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat no. 20, p. 112

Admired from afar: masterworks of Japanese painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art [クリーブランド美術館展: 名画でたどる日本の美 = Kurīburando Bijutsukan ten: meiga de tadoru Nihon no bi ]. Tokyo: Tōkyō Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, 2014. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 36, p. 118

Exhibition history

Year in Review: 1979. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 20-March 9, 1980).

Suibokuga: Japanese Ink Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 1, 1985-February 24, 1986).

Soga Shohaku (1730-81). Kyoto National Museum, Kyoto, Japan (organizer) (April 12-May 15, 2005).

Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, Japan (January 15-February 23, 2014); Kyushu National Museum, Fukuoka, Japan (July 8-August 31, 2014).