The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Rectangular tapestry in muted browns and blues depicting people with light skin tones wearing light-colored, floor-length robes gathered in an interior. Adults cluster at the back of the room with two dark-blue robed, bearded men sitting at a central circular table among children. More children gather around a table to the left and clusters of children hold instruments or plants, standing across the plain, grey-brown floor of the lower half.

Family Gathering on New Year's Morning

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: Not on view

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.
  • Typically, large tapestries such as this one would have a strip of 5.1 cm (2 in.) wide Velcro hand stitched to the top back edge and the tapestry would hang vertically on the wall supported only by the Velcro. Because of this tapestry’s fragility, the decision was made to display it at an angle. A thin layer of polyester batting was first secured to the slanted display surface to provide additional support overall.
  • 1914–1942
    John L. Severance [1863–1936], Cleveland, OH, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1942–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • "A Chinese Tapestry." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 25, no. 136 (1914): 231–230. pp. 230–231 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): 137–151. 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
    Griswold, William, Xiaofei Tian, Richard Von Glahn, Feng Zhao, S. J. Vainker, Masaaki Itakura, Jiang Wu, et al. China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. Edited by Clarissa von Spee. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 394–395, no. 223
    Rado, Mei Mei. The Empire’s New Cloth: Cross-Cultural Textiles at the Qing Court. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025. Mentioned: pp. 109, 134; Reproduced: p. 104, 11, fig. 94; p. 112-113, figs. 95–97; p. 135, figs. 114–115; p. 163, Back Cover
  • China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10, 2023-January 7, 2024).
    The Porcelain Connection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 22-August 15, 1982).
    Art: The International Language. The Cleveland Museum of Art (October 2-November 4, 1956).
    Exhibition of the Month: Historic Flower Containers. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 31, 1952-March 3, 1953).
    Gallery I - Exhibition of the Month: Chinese Furniture. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 1946).
    Exhibition of the John L. Severance Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 12, 1942-March 14, 1943).
    Inaugural Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (June 6-September 20, 1916).
  • {{cite web|title=Family Gathering on New Year's Morning|url=false|author=|year=late 1760s|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

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