The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 25, 2024

Sericulture (The Process of Making Silk)

Sericulture (The Process of Making Silk)

early 1200s

attributed to Liang Kai

(Chinese, mid-1100s-early 1200s)
China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
Handscroll; ink and color on silk
First Section: 26.7 x 98.6 cm (10 1/2 x 38 13/16 in.); Second Section: 27.6 x 92.3 cm (10 7/8 x 36 5/16 in.); Third Section: 27.6 x 92.3 cm (10 7/8 x 36 5/16 in.)
John L. Severance Collection 1977.5
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

The painting is attributed to Liang Kai, a court artist active from about 1201 to 1204 at the Imperial Painting Academy in the city of Hangzhou, a major silk weaving center from that time to the present day.

Description

By the Southern Song period, the economic center of the silk industry had shifted to the lower Yangzi delta, while the north continued to be troubled by wars.

Divided into three sections, the handscroll illustrates 14 steps in the process of making silk. The scroll’s scenes follow the illustrations of Lou Shou’s (1090–1162) Pictures of Tilling and Weaving (gengzhi tu), the first recorded painting of this genre, which was conceived in Hangzhou around 1145. However, in the Cleveland painting the artist groups several scenes of sericulture together under the roof of an open structure.
  • ?–1977
    (Cheng Qi 程琦 [1911–1988], sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1977–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • 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. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 61, pp. 78–80
    Smith, Bonnie G., et.al. World in the Making: A Global History. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Reproduced: p. 387
  • 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 Splendor of Chinese Silk – Chinese Gallery Rotation 240a, 241c. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 5-August 12, 2018).
    Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 120). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (October 26, 2003-March 11, 2004).
    Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (November 7, 1980-January 4, 1981); The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 11-March 29, 1981); Tokyo National Museum (October 4-November 17, 1982).
    Year in Review: 1977. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1977-January 22, 1978).
  • {{cite web|title=Sericulture (The Process of Making Silk)|url=false|author=Liang Kai|year=early 1200s|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1977.5