Two Riders Searching for Plum Blossoms
date: label: Date
content: 16th century
label: Period
content: Ming dynasty
name: label: Artist
content: Formerly attributed to Xia Gui 夏珪 (active ca. 1195-1230)
notes: label: School/Tradition
content: Zhe School
label: Label
content: This chilly winter scene focuses on a pair of riders and their servants traveling up a mountain trail, where they have come upon a blossoming plum tree. A huge, almost cylindrical rock leans above them, while the looming spires of distant snow-covered peaks project above the group of large buildings, perhaps a temple complex, that might have been their starting place. In paintings such as this, it is difficult to know if the travelers have set out intentionally to find plum blossoms or have simply encountered them along the road.
label: Label
content: This unsigned work is a typical example of Zhe School painting, which flourished during the early to mid-Ming dynasty (1368-1644) in the area of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, the former imperial capital of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279). With the Zhe School revival of Song styles in the early Ming dynasty, monumental ink-landscape paintings with heavily contoured and sculpted mountain forms became more common, while the expressive possibilities of brushwork and the evocation of mood generally took precedence over the technical niceties of execution. In the present painting, the main trunk of the plum tree has been trimmed along the right edge, leaving only a few limbs and twigs to whet the viewer's imagination.
label: Provenance
content: To 1919
label: Provenance
content: You Xiaoxi (late 19th-early 20th century), Shanghai, to 1919 [1]
label: Provenance
content: 1919
label: Provenance
content: Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from You Xiaoxi in 1919 [2]
label: Provenance
content: From 1920
label: Provenance
content: Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]
label: Provenance
content: Notes:
label: Provenance
content: [1] See Original Kakemono and Makimono List, L. 1336, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.
label: Provenance
content: [2] See note 1.
label: Provenance
content: [3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.
label: Collection
content: Freer Gallery of Art Collection
label: Exhibition History
content: Three Friends of Winter: Pine, Bamboo, and Plum in Chinese Painting (August 12, 2001 to February 3, 2002)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: You Xiaoxi 游篠溪 (late 19th-early 20th century) (C.L. Freer source)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)
place: label: Origin
content: China
topic: label: Topic
content: landscape
label: Topic
content: winter
label: Topic
content: Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644)
label: Topic
content: mountain
label: Topic
content: China
label: Topic
content: Chinese Art
label: Topic
content: Charles Lang Freer collection
setName: label: Related Online Resources
content: Google Arts & Culture
label: See more items in
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Charles Lang Freer
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: F1919.141
objectType: label: Type
content: Painting
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: CC0
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: Hanging scroll mounted on panel; ink and color on silk
label: Dimensions
content: H x W (image): 136.7 x 71.3 cm (53 13/16 x 28 1/16 in)