The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 5, 2023

Family Gathering on New Year's Morning

緙絲毛掛毯：歲朝圖

late 1760s

China, Qing dynasty

(1644-1911)

Silk and wool: tapestry weave

Overall: 257.8 x 377.8 cm (101 1/2 x 148 3/4 in.)

Bequest of John L. Severance 1942.825

Location

003 Special Exhibition Hall

Description

This European-style tapestry depicts a family gathering, in a woven Western picture frame, that presumably once furnished the Hall of Cultivating the Mind (Yangxin dian) in the Forbidden City. The tapestry employs Western perspective and shading combined with the traditional Chinese subject of a family gathering in a palace, including motifs expressing wishes for good fortune and for a peaceful reign.

In 1766, six French tapestries had been presented to the Chinese court. The Qianlong emperor was so intrigued that he commissioned tapestries in the French style from Suzhou. Records mention an imperial order for tapestries in the Western style, such as this one, in 1769, 1770, and 1775.

Provenance
1914–1942
John L. Severance [1863–1936], Cleveland, OH, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art
1942–
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
"A Chinese Tapestry." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 25, no. 136 (1914): 231-30. pp. 230-31 www.jstor.org.ingallslibrary.idm.oclc.org
Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of the Inaugural Exhibition June 6-September 20, 1916. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1916. Mentioned: p. 174, no. 41
Marceau, Henri, Horace H. F. Jayne, Calvin S Hathaway, Nancy Andrews Reath, and Boies Penrose. “The Stotesbury Collection.” Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum 28, no. 151 (1932): 19–31. p. 30
Catalogue of the John L. Severance Collection: Bequest of John L. Severance, 1936. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1942. Reproduced: p. [57], Plate XXVIII, cat. no. 124; Mention: p. 60, cat. no. 124 archive.org
Milliken, William M., Gertrude Underhill, and Jean Mailey. "Department of Decorative Arts." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 29, no. 9 (1942): 137-51. pp. 148-149 www.jstor.org.ingallslibrary.idm.oclc.org
Lee, Sherman E. “Varieties of Portraiture in Chinese and Japanese Art.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 4 (1977): 118–136. Mentioned: footnote 9, pp. 121 and 135 www.jstor.org
Ball, Victoria Kloss. Architecture and Interior Design: Europe and America from the Colonial Era to Today. vol. 2. New York: Wiley, 1980. Reproduced: fig. 2.32, pl. 81
Imagining Qianlong: Louis XV's Chinese Emperor Tapestries and Battle Scene Prints at the Imperial Court in Beijing. Hong Kong: University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, 2017. Reproduced: pp. 56-57, fig. 1
Rado, Mei Mei. “Qing Imperial Encounters with European Tapestries: The ‘Tenture Chinoise’ and Beyond.” In Arachné / Textes Rassemblés Et Édités Par Pascal-François Bertrand Et Audrey Nassieu Maupas Seite. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017. pp. 119-135
Exhibition history

Gallery I - Exhibition of the Month: Chinese Furniture. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 1946).

Inaugural Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (June 6-September 20, 1916).

Exhibition of the John L. Severance Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 12, 1942-March 14, 1943).

Exhibition of the Month: Historic Flower Containers. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 31, 1952-March 3, 1953).

Art: The International Language. The Cleveland Museum of Art (October 2-November 4, 1956).

The Porcelain Connection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 22-August 15, 1982).

China's Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10, 2023-January 7, 2024).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1942.825