Collection Online as of June 6, 2023

Landscape Album in Various Styles: Spring Plowing

四季山水圖冊

1684

Part of a set. See all set records

Zha Shibiao 查士標

(Chinese, 1615–1698)

China, Qing dynasty

(1644-1911)

Album leaf; ink and light color on paper

Overall: 29.9 x 39.4 cm (11 3/4 x 15 1/2 in.)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Severance A. Millikin 1955.37.2

Location

240A Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy

Description

Zha Shibiao, a native of Anhui province, moved to Yangzhou later in his career, like so many of his fellow countrymen. At age 68, he painted this album with seasonal landscapes in various styles. Painted in fresh colors and wet strokes, all depict typical scenes of Jiangnan, the Yangzi delta: a herdboy on a buffalo wading through water, boating on the stream to the Peach Blossom Spring at Wulin, a waterfront town shrouded in mist, a scholar on his donkey enjoying the red autumn leaves, and drinking tea on a boat while watching migrating birds.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Artist's inscription, signature, and seal: A picture of spring plowing. Painted by an Aging Idler. [seal] Shibiao.

Provenance

Ma Yueguan 馬曰琯 [1688–1755]

Ding Huikang 丁惠康 [1868/1869–about 1918] and Gu Anmi 顧安宓

?-1955

(C. T. Loo & Co., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

1955-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Lee, Sherman E. Chinese Landscape Painting. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1954. cat. no. 107

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned: cat. no. 875 archive.org

Lee, Sherman Emery, and James Robinson. The Colors of Ink: Chinese Paintings and Related Ceramics from the Cleveland Museum of Art. New York: Asia Society; distributed by New York Graphic Society, 1974.

Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1980. Reproduced: cat. no. 226, pp. 303-305

Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 386-390

Exhibition history

Chinese Landscape Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 5-December 26, 1954).

The Colors of Ink. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (April 9-May 12, 1974).

Conference on Oriental-Western Literary and Cultural Relations. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (1974).

Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (November 7, 1980-January 4, 1981); The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 10-March 29, 1981); Tokyo National Museum (October 4-November 17, 1982).

Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 122). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 23-October 27, 2003). 1955.37.2 only

When Salt was Gold: Yangzhou, City of Riches and Art (Chinese art rotation). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 12-November 5, 2023).