The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Quails and Sparrows in an Autumn Scene

1347

Wang Yuan

(Chinese, c. 1299-after 1366)
China, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
hanging scroll, ink on paper
Painting: 114.3 x 56 cm (45 x 22 1/16 in.); Overall with knobs: 267.5 x 85 cm (105 5/16 x 33 7/16 in.)
Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1997.91
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Wang Yuan was from Qiantang, today’s Hangzhou in eastern China.

Description

The flower-and-bird subjects here are depicted in a meticulous manner, echoing the academic tradition but translating the customarily colored images to plain monochrome. Fine ink lines combined with carefully graded washes define the contours and give subtle modeling to the natural forms.

Wang Yuan excelled in flower-and-bird subjects as well as landscape and figure paintings. A child prodigy, he was instructed by the great Yuan master Zhao Mengfu at an early age.
  • Qing imperial collection [seals of Emperor Qianlong, r. 1736–95]
    Zhang Heng 張珩 [1915–1963]
    ?-1960
    (Frank Caro [1904–1980], New York, NY, sold to Mr. and Mrs. A. Dean Perry)
    1960-1997
    Mr. A. Dean and Mrs. Helen Wade Greene Perry [1911-1996], Cleveland, OH, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1997-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Jiao yu bu di er ci quan guo mei shu zhan lan hui zhuan ji [敎育部第二次全國美術展覽會專集 = A special collection of the second National Exhibition of Chinese Art under the auspices of the Ministry of Education]. [Nanjing?]: Shang wu yin shu guan, 1937. vol. 1, cat. no. 68
    Wang, Chi-ch'ien 王季遷. An Exhibition of Authenticated Chinese Paintings, April 1948. New York: C.T. Loo, 1948. cat. no. 8
    Rowland, Benjamin. Masterpieces of Chinese Bird and Flower Painting; A Loan Exhibition. October 30-December 14, 1951. Cambridge, MA: Fogg Art Museum, 1951. cat. no. 15
    Caro, Frank and Hsien-Chi Tseng. Loan Exhibition of Chinese Paintings. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, 1956. cat. no. 7
    Goepper, Roger. 1000 Jahre chinesische Malerei. München: Haus der Kunst, 1959. cat. no. 32
    Lee, Sherman E., and Wai-kam Ho. Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yüan Dynasty, 1279-1368. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art; [distributed by the Press of Case Western Reserve University], 1968. Reproduced: cat. no. 240.
    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: pp. 107-108, cat. no. 87
    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. 150-153
    Giuffrida, Noelle. Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. Mentioned: p. 125. Reproduced: fig. 73, p. 124
    Giuffrida, Noelle. Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. Reproduced: p. 124, fig. 73
  • Six Dynasties of Chinese Painting (Chinese art rotation). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 10, 2023-May 5, 2024).
    Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 242). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 28, 2014-January 7, 2015).
    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).
    Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yüan Dynasty, 1279-1368. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (October 1-November 24, 1968).
    1000 Jahre Chinesische Malerei. Haus der Kunst, Munich, Mùnich, Germany (organizer) (October 16-December 13, 1959).
    Loan exhibition of Chinese paintings. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (May-June 1956).
    Masterpieces of Chinese Bird and Flower Painting. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA (October 30-December 14, 1951).
    An exhibition of authenticated Chinese paintings.C. T Loo & Co., New York, NY (April 1948).
    Chiao-yü-pu. [Jiao yu bu di er ci quan guo mei shu zhan lan hui zhuan ji 敎育部第二次全國美術展覽會專集 = A special collection of the second National Exhibition of Chinese Art under the auspices of the Ministry of Education]. Nanking Art Gallery, Nanjing, China (April 1-23, 1937).
  • {{cite web|title=Quails and Sparrows in an Autumn Scene|url=false|author=Wang Yuan|year=1347|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1997.91