Collection Online as of June 10, 2023

Squirrels on the Chestnut Tree

松鼠圖

1300s

Ge Shuying 松田

(Chinese, active 1300s)

China, Yuan dynasty

(1271-1368)

Hanging scroll; ink on paper

Image: 97 x 39.4 cm (38 3/16 x 15 1/2 in.); Overall: 181.6 x 58 cm (71 1/2 x 22 13/16 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1979.70

Location

not on view

Description

Songtian is known for his depictions of squirrels in a monochrome style characterized by crisp, decisive brushstrokes. He may have been a Chan (Zen) priest-painter,or perhaps a Daoist painter, active in the Hangzhou region of China. From there his works spread to Japan.

Provenance

?–1979

(S. Yabumoto Co., Ltd., Tokyo, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

1979–

The Cleveland Museum of Art,Cleveland, OH

Citations

Matsudaira, Yorihira 松平賴平, Munetō Tayama 田山宗堯, and Yuijirō Kamei 龜井唯二郎. Shōbi shiryō 尚美資料. Tōkyō: Shōbikai, 1917. Reproduced: vol. II, unnumbered plate

Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1979." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 3 (1980): 58–99. Reproduced: cat. no. 125, p. 83; Mentioned: p. 62 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. 79, pp. 97–99

Rogers, Howard. "Questioning Authority." Orientations, January/February 2005, vol. 36 Issue 1, pp. 56–63. Reproduced: p. 59

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. Reproduced: pp. 130–132

Exhibition history

Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 119). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 12-July 16, 2003).

Year in Review: 1979. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 13-March 9, 1980).

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).