Rain-coming Pavilion by the Stone Bridge at Mt. Tiantai

天台石梁, 雨來亭圖

1848

Dai Xi 戴熙

(Chinese, 1801–1860)

Culture

China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)

Medium

handscroll, ink on paper

Measurements

Image: 34.5 x 142.6 cm (13 9/16 x 56 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund 1979.54

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Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

Dai Xi actively resisted the Taiping rebels and drowned himself after their 1860 capture of his hometown, Hangzhou. For this loyal deed, Dai was posthumously rewarded with a temple built in his name.

Description

The subject is not just Mount Tiantai in Zhejiang Province, the ancient seat of the most powerful Buddhist sect of Sui and Tang dynasties, but records a specific occasion in 1838 when an official visited Tiantai and began the reconstruction of a historic pavilion. As this coincided with the end of a long drought, the building was auspiciously renamed the Yulai (Rain-Coming 雨來) Pavilion. Ten years later, Dai Xi painted this handscroll to commemorate the occasion.