The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 6, 2023

Returning Sails off a Distant Shore, from Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang

山水図

early 1600s

follower of Sesshū Tōyō 雪舟等楊

(Japanese, 1420–1506)

Japan, Momoyama period (1573-1615) to Edo period

(1615-1858)

Hanging scroll from a set of eight; ink and color on silk

Painting: 143.6 x 72.7 cm (56 9/16 x 28 5/8 in.); Mounted: 251.1 x 90.3 cm (98 7/8 x 35 9/16 in.)

Gift from the Collection of George Gund III 2015.589

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

Other paintings from the same set are in the collections of the Rhode Island School of Design and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Description

This painting and CMA 2015.590 belong to a group that was likely mounted as a pair of four-panel folding screens focusing on the Eight Views of Xiao-Xiang, a theme centered on an area in southern China. The one to the left represents the motif “Returning Sails Off a Distant Shore;” to the right is “Sunset Glow Over a Fishing Village.” Both emulate the style of Chinese painter Li Tang (about 1050–after 1130). Some scholars believe the paintings are the work of Sesshū Tōyō (1420–1506), the only Japanese painter of his day to have traveled to China.

Provenance
Daté Family Collection
?–2015
George Gund III [1937–2013], bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art
2015–
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
Longhi, Leighton R. Leighton R. Longhi: Forty-Five Years in Asian Art. [New York, N.Y.]: Leighton R. Longhi, 2019. Reproduced: p. 65, fig. 49
Exhibition history

Reeds and Geese: Japanese Art from the Collection of George Gund III. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 21-September 3, 2017).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2015.589