The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Horizontally long handscroll with the central three-fifths depicting women with light skin tones and white faces among a palace. Staggered columns of Chinese calligraphy flank on the left, and, right, a large row Chinese calligraphy. Red and brown beams and gates support the palace, porches wrapping around and filled with women with black hair wearing long-sleeved robes. They also walk into the garden, dotted with trees and with water in the upper left.

Palace Ladies

1644–1911

copy after Qiu Ying

(Chinese, 1494–1552)
China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
handscroll, ink and color on silk
Overall: 36.2 x 454.4 cm (14 1/4 x 178 7/8 in.)
Gift of I. Theodore Kahn 1954.369
Location: Not on view

Description

This handscroll illustrates the pursuits of court ladies in a palace precinct on a spring day. Women, young girls, and their maids amuse themselves by sitting on a swing, playing games, watering and admiring peonies, performing music together, playing the qin (zither), feeding a parrot on the balustrade and fish in the water, or catching butterflies. The life of elite women was mostly restricted to the so-called inner quarters, meaning the garden and inner courts of the house. This painting idealizes the world of young palace girls that in fact was often filled with boredom and waiting for a lover.
  • ?–1954
    I. Theodore Kahn, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1954–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Wangwright, Amanda S. "The Sick Man of Asia." In Visualizing the Body in Art, Anatomy, and Medicine Since 1800: Models and Modeling. Andrew Graciano, and Rebecca Marie Messbarger, eds., 180-200. London; New York: Routledge, 2019. Mentioned: P. 187; reproduced: pl. 8.2
  • Facing the Ancestors: Chinese Portraits and Figure Painting – Chinese Gallery Rotation 240a, 241c. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 12, 2019-February 2, 2020).
  • {{cite web|title=Palace Ladies|url=false|author=Qiu Ying|year=1644–1911|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1954.369