Description
Fan Qi's painting on this second leaf of the album is, perhaps, based on Du Mu's poetic line: The herdboy pointed to the distant Apricot Village.
Han Tan's calligraphic colophon facing the painting reads:
A thousand feet of red cliffs look like a sculptured flower of furong;
In one glance, the long bridge joins adjacent ridges.
Furthermore a wine shop stands in a bamboo grove;
The fellow who bought some good wine is drunk on the eastern shore of the stream.
Han Tan's calligraphic colophon facing the painting reads:
A thousand feet of red cliffs look like a sculptured flower of furong;
In one glance, the long bridge joins adjacent ridges.
Furthermore a wine shop stands in a bamboo grove;
The fellow who bought some good wine is drunk on the eastern shore of the stream.
Provenance
Tomioka Tessai 富岡鐵齋 [1836–1924]; (Robert G. Sawers [b. c. 1934], London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?-1975); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1975-)
Accession Number
1975.22.2
Medium
album leaf, ink and color on silk
Dimensions
Image: 12.6 x 17.3 cm (4 15/16 x 6 13/16 in.); Overall: 21 x 22 cm (8 1/4 x 8 11/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Ink Silk Painting Chinese
Background & Context
Background Story
Fan Qi (active mid-17th century) was a Chinese painter known for the precisely observed, elegantly composed album leaf paintings that make him one of the accomplished painters of the early Qing dynasty. Album of Miscellaneous Subjects, Leaf 2 from the early 1650s depicts miscellaneous subjects in the precisely observed, elegantly composed manner of the album leaf tradition that distinguishes Fan Qi's best work from the more general painting of his contemporaries. The early 1650s date places this in the period of the transition from Ming to Qing, when Chinese painters were producing some of their most accomplished album leaf paintings, and Fan Qi's precisely observed, elegantly composed treatment shows the album leaf tradition at its most refined.
Cultural Impact
Album of Miscellaneous Subjects, Leaf 2 is important in the history of Chinese painting because it demonstrates the precisely observed, elegantly composed manner of the album leaf tradition as practiced by one of the accomplished painters of the early Qing dynasty. The album leaf tradition—one of the most refined formats in Chinese painting, requiring precisely observed, elegantly composed treatment in a small format—represents one of the most accomplished traditions in Chinese painting, and Fan Qi's early 1650s painting shows this tradition at its most refined.
Why It Matters
Album of Miscellaneous Subjects is Fan Qi's elegantly composed Qing album leaf: miscellaneous subjects rendered in the precisely observed manner of one of the accomplished painters of the early Qing dynasty. The early 1650s painting shows the album leaf tradition at its most refined in a small, precisely observed format.
