The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 21, 2025

Insects and Bamboo

1200s

China, Southern Song dynasty

(1127–1279)
Album leaf; ink and light color on silk
Image: 23.8 x 25.6 cm (9 3/8 x 10 1/16 in.)
The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith 1985.364
Location: Not on view

Description

This painting represents a microcosm (a world in small) of the Jiangnan ecosystem: while the bush cricket feeds on bamboo, the male widow-skimmer dragonfly is a predator of small insects like mosquitos. Mosquitoes, abundant in late summer and early autumn, suggest the fall season.
  • (Heisando Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Kelvin Smith)
    ? by 1980–1985
    The Kelvin Smith Collection, Cleveland, OH, given by Mrs. Kelvin [Eleanor Armstrong] Smith [1899–1998] to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1985–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    Provenance Footnotes
    1 1980 Eight Dynasties exhibition catalogue (cat. no. 33, p. 52) lists ownership information as "Intended gift to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Kelvin Smith." 
  • 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. 33, p. 52
    Cunningham, Michael R. “Painting the Poetry of the Natural World.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 7 (September 1988): 279–291. Mentioned: p. 282; Reproduced: p. 284, fig. 5 www.jstor.org
    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: p. 66
    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. 207, no. 86
  • China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10, 2023-January 7, 2024).
    A Private World: Japanese and Chinese Art from the Kelvin Smith Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 14-November 13, 1988).
    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).
  • {{cite web|title=Insects and Bamboo|url=false|author=|year=1200s|access-date=21 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1985.364