The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

River Village: Fisherman's Joy

c. 1302–3

Zhao Mengfu

(Chinese, 1254–1322)
China, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
Fan painting mounted as album leaf; ink and color on silk
Overall: 28.6 x 30 cm (11 1/4 x 11 13/16 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1978.66
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Various human elements can be found in the painting: two fishermen, an individual with a donkey, and someone in the house.

Description

The artist of this blue-green–style landscape, Zhao Mengfu, was a southerner, versed in all fields of literati pursuits, such as calligraphy and connoisseurship. A princeling of the defeated Southern Song dynasty, he was nevertheless successfully recruited by Khubilai Khan to the Mongol court in the new capital, Dadu (modern Beijing), in 1286. This painting combines a distinctively southern flat watery landscape combined with features of the northern landscape tradition, notably the spiky trees, branches, and rough-surfaced rocks.
  • ?–1978
    (C. C. Wang 王季遷 [1907–2003], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1978–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Goepper, Roger. 1000 Jahre chinesische Malerei. München: Haus der Kunst, 1959. cat. no. 63
    Cahill, James, and Virginia Field. Fantastics and Eccentrics in Chinese Painting. [New York]: Asia Society; distributed by Abrams, 1967. p. 19, cat. no. 1.
    Vinograd, Richard. “‘River Village: The Pleasures of Fishing’ and Chao Meng-Fu's Li-Kuo Style Landscapes.” Artibus Asiae, vol. 40, no. 2/3, 1978, pp. 124–142. Reproduced: fig. 1, p. 135 3249802
    Ishikawa, Jun 石川淳, Yoshitaka Iriya 入矢義高, Yūjirō Nakata 中田勇次郎, and Hironobu Kohara 古原宏伸. Kō Kōbō, Gei San, Ō Mō, Go Chin [黄公望, 倪瓚, 王蒙, 呉鎮]. Tōkyō: Chūō Kōronsha, 1979. Reproduced: p. 176, pl. 66
    Lee, Sherman E. "River Village: Fisherman's Joy." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Vol. 66, No. 7 (Oct., 1979), pp. 271–288. Reproduced: pp. 271–288, cover and fig. 1 www.jstor.org
    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. 80, pp. 99–100
    Li, Chu-tsing. "The Great Tradition in Chinese Painting." Asia Vol. 4, No. 4 (November/December 1981): pp. 32–37 and 42–43. Reproduced: p. 33
    Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998. Mentioned: p. 70; Reproduced: p. 71
    Tōyō kaiga no seika: tokubetsuten: Kurīvurando Bijutsukan no korekushon kara [東洋絵画の精華 : 特别展 : クリーヴラント美術館のコレクションから = Highlights of Asian painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art]. Japan: Nara National Museum, 1998. Reproduced: p. 62, cat. no. 37
    Sugimura, Tō 杉村棟. Isurāmu イスラーム. Tōkyō: Shōgakukan, 1999 Mentioned: p. 145, no. 50
    Hearn, Maxwell K. “Shifting Paradigms in Yuan Literati Art: The Case of the Li-Guo Tradition.” Ars Orientalis, vol. 37, 2009, pp. 78–106. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 85, fig. 5 29550009
    Yang, 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 and Reproduced: p. 308, no. 19
    McCausland, Shane. Zhao Mengfu: Calligraphy and Painting for Khubilai's China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011. Reproduced: p. 249, fig. 3.25
    Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015. Reproduced: pp. 100–101
    Burnett, Katharine P. "A New Look at a New Look: Painting and Theory of Seventeenth-Century China." Little, Stephen. In 17th-century Chinese paintings from the Tsao family collection. Stephen Little, ed., 130–167. Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich, Germany; DelMonico Books, 2016. Reproduced: p. 155, fig. 47
    Joo, HaYoung, Bora Lee, Jeonghee Choi, Jihee Jun, and Eurus Collection. Chinese Fans: The Untold Story. Edited by First Edition Translations Ltd. London, Seoul: Scala Arts & Heritage; in association with Eurus Collection, 2023. Reproduced: p. 110, fig. 25
    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: p. 221, no. 96
  • China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10, 2023-January 7, 2024).
    Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 122). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 4–July 23, 2003).
    The Artist as Collector: Masterpieces of Chinese Painting from the C.C. Wang Family Collection. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (September 3, 1999-January 9, 2000).
    Fans: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 15, 1992-March 7, 1993).
    Asian Autumn: Masterpieces from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17, 1991-January 5, 1992).
    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: 1978. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 13-March 18, 1979).
  • {{cite web|title=River Village: Fisherman's Joy|url=false|author=Zhao Mengfu|year=c. 1302–3|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1978.66