Album of Landscape Paintings Illustrating Old Poems: Two Women with Needlework in a Garden China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)

Album of Landscape Paintings Illustrating Old Poems: Two Women with Needlework in a Garden

1745

Hua Yan 華喦

(Chinese, 1682–c. 1765)

China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)

Album leaf; ink and light color on paper

Image: 11.2 x 13.1 cm (4 7/16 x 5 3/16 in.); Album, closed: 15 x 18.5 cm (5 7/8 x 7 5/16 in.)

Edwin R. and Harriet Pelton Perkins Memorial Fund 1982.68.6

Location: not on view

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Description

Two women doing needlework are confined in an interior space. The other 11 paintings in this Hua Yan album show men in nature. The women may experience the natural world only through the large moon-shaped window open to a garden. Prominently displayed in the garden is a Taihu stone, like CMA 2022.23.

Taihu stones are valued for their natural shapes and sculptural qualities and are a cultural peculiarity. These perforated limestones were originally sourced from Lake Tai in southeast China from where they got their names. Large ones were set up like sculptures in gardens, like the one in this painting.