Skip to Main Content

Eighteen Views of Huzhou

湖州十八景圖

c. 1588

Song Xu 宋旭

(Chinese, 1525-c. 1606)
China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Wanli reign (1573–1620)
Album of eighteen leaves; ink and color on silk
Each leaf: 26.4 x 28.4 cm (10 3/8 x 11 3/16 in.)
The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 1998.78
Location: not on view
Public Domain
You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.

Download, Print and Share

Did You Know?

Song Xu favored a painting style that was technically polished and focused attention on specific, realistic details.

Description

By the 1500s, visits to historic and scenic sites in the lower Yangzi delta stimulated an increase of printed illustrated travel books. Topographical depictions of local scenery flourished.

Leaves from this album illustrates sites around Lake Tai of the two adjacent counties Changxing and Wuxing (modern Huzhou). Song Xu, who lived intermittently in Jiaxing and Songjiang, must have passed through Wuxing by boat and thus knew the region.

The paintings are inscribed with gazetteerlike notations, suggesting that the album was produced for clients as commemorative works, a travel guide, or for “armchair travel” (woyou) in one’s mind.
Eighteen Views of Huzhou

Eighteen Views of Huzhou

c. 1588

Song Xu

(Chinese, 1525-c. 1606)
China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Wanli reign (1573–1620)

See Also

Visually Similar by AI

    Contact us

    The information about this object, including provenance, may not be currently accurate. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@clevelandart.org.

    To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

    All images and data available through Open Access can be downloaded for free. For images not available through Open Access, a detail image, or any image with a color bar, request a digital file from Image Services.