The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of May 12, 2024
Herbaceous Peony
1685
(Chinese, 1633–1690)
Painting: 118.7 x 71.8 cm (46 3/4 x 28 1/4 in.); Overall with knobs: 226 x 84.4 cm (89 x 33 1/4 in.)
Location: not on view
Did You Know?
In East Asian art, peonies traditionally symbolize prosperity and wealth.Description
Yun Shouping came from Piling (modern Changzhou), Jiangsu province, a center of floral, plant, and insect painting. He had joined the anti-Manchu resistance, was briefly imprisoned, and witnessed the death of family members in 1644.Like other artists, Yun Shouping expressed his Ming loyalism in coded pictures. The peony, king of flowers, and a spring garden motif developed new meaning during the Qing dynasty. The inscription indicates that Yun turns the flower into a motif representing the glorious past. The herbaceous peonies here appear somewhat withered and pale, with faint reddish veins running through its broken branches, perhaps a coded message.
The inscription reads,
An old painting by an anonymous painter of the Northern Song Dynasty has five varieties of flowers painted in the boneless manner. Its colors are so beguiling and beautiful, that even after several hundred years its lead pigments are like new. The skill with which the ink and colors were applied and the subtlety of its composition find no equal among modern followers.
- ?–1967C. C. Wang 王季遷 [1907–2003], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art1967–The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1968.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 56, no. 1, 1969, pp. 3–50. Reproduced: p. 38, no. 134a; Mentioned: pp. 39, 49, no. 134a 25152250Ho, 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. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 242, pp. 327–329Suzuki, Kei 鈴木敬. Chūgoku kaiga sōgō zuroku [中國繪畫總合圖錄= Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Paintings], 第1卷. アメリカ·カナダ篇[= vol. 1 American and Canadian collections]. Tōkyō: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1982. Mentioned and Reproduced: fig. A22-102Chung, Saehyang P. Yün Shou-Pʼing (1633-1690) and the Orthodox Tradition of Chinese Bird-and-Flower Painting. PhD diss. Columbia University, 1983.Nagoya Bosuton Bijutsukan, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Kachō-ga no kirameki: tōyō no seika [花鳥画の煌き: 東洋の静華 = the brilliance of bird-and-flower painting: gems of East Asian art]. Nagoya: Nagoya Bosuton Bijutsukan, 2005. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 15, fig. 7Yang, Kathleen 楊凱琳, and Chi-chʻien Wang 王季遷. Through a Chinese connoisseur's eye: private notes of C.C. Wang 王季遷讀書筆記. Beijing: Zhong hua shu ju, 2010. Mentioned: p. 313, no. 37Chiem, Kristen. "Painting, Peonies, and Ming Loyalism in Qing-Dynasty China, 1644-1795." Archives of Asian Art 67, no. 1 (Apr. 2017): [83]-109. Reproduced: p. 96, fig. 8
- China's Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10, 2023-January 7, 2024).Inspired by Chinese Landscape and Art – Chinese Gallery Rotation 240a, 241c. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 14, 2017-February 5, 2018).Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 119). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 13-November 17, 2004).Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 119). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 12-July 16, 2003).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).Year in Review: 1968. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 29-March 9, 1969).
- {{cite web|title=Herbaceous Peony|url=false|author=Yun Shouping|year=1685|access-date=12 May 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1967.192