Artwork Page for Three Horses and Four Grooms

Details / Information for Three Horses and Four Grooms

Three Horses and Four Grooms

三駿圖

c. 1320s

Ren Renfa 任仁發

(Chinese, 1254–1328)
Culture
China, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
Medium
handscroll, ink and color on silk
Measurements
Painting: 28.5 x 137.5 cm (11 1/4 x 54 1/8 in.); Overall: 29.2 x 556.4 cm (11 1/2 x 219 1/16 in.)
Credit Line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1960.181
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
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Did You Know?

Only the elegant first horse with a white blaze is accompanied by two grooms, as if its lightning speed required extra supervision.

Description

Ren Renfa's horse images are elegant in appearance and vigorous in spirit. His work attracted not only Chinese scholars but also the Mongols at the imperial court. Inspired by the contemporary scholarly interest in restoring a sense of antiquity in art—an artistic direction led by Zhao Mengfu that exerted a great impact in the Yuan art scene—Ren Renfa, like Zhao Mengfu, modeled his depictions of horses after the Song master Li Gonglin. Another key style component that Ren introduced to this genre was a revival of the Tang classical tradition. The refined color treatment of the horses as seen here was derived from the Tang master Han Gan.
Horizontally long handscroll displaying Chinese calligraphy on the left (see "Inscriptions") and three horses walking to our right led by four people with light skin tone, holding their reins, on the right. Left to right, a person in a purple robes leads a dappled white and grey horse, a yellow horse and person in pink robes look at us, and a person wearing red leads a brown horse, a last person in grey looking back.

Three Horses and Four Grooms

c. 1320s

Ren Renfa

(Chinese, 1254–1328)
China, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)

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