Palace ladies by a lotus pond
date: label: Date
content: 18th century
label: Period
content: Qing dynasty
name: label: Artist
content: Formerly attributed to Zhou Wenju (傳)周文矩 (active mid-10th century)
notes: label: Description
content: Depicting a scene of women, children and servants (total of fifteen figures) engaged in various activities, including playing weiqi and playing musical instruments, both inside and outside a pavilion overlooking a lotus pond with a pair of mandarin ducks. In the middle there is one figure on each side of a fence covered with a flowering vine. To the left stand a woman and a servant (who holds a zither) in a pavilion containing a table with scholarly implements and a ding, and with a painting on a screen.
label: Description
content: Signature at lower left; total of 27 seals (17 on painting), four inscriptions (poems) on painting, five colophons, no labels. Unused frontispiece with cloud motif. Ivory pin.
label: Label
content: This handscroll is attributed to the celebrated painter Zhou Wenju, who served at the court of the Southern Tang kingdom (937-975). Zhou was most highly regarded for his depictions of elegant palace women as they attended their everyday duties. Here, a group of ladies, children, and servants have gathered at a pavilion built over a lotus pond in a residential quarter of the palace grounds. Some of them while away the time with a game of weiqi (better known in the West by its Japanese name, go), which was traditionally considered one of the polite arts. Two other ladies with fishing rods stand by the pond, one of them beckoning a servant to bait her hook.
label: Label
content: While this painting bears a general thematic relationship to the tradition associated with Zhou Wenju, the overall composition, use of color, and stylistic execution are much closer to the approach popularized by the Ming dynasty painter, Qiu Ying (ca. 1494-1552), and may have been executed by an eighteenth-century follower after one of his designs.
label: Provenance
content: To 1903
label: Provenance
content: Bunkio Matsuki (1867-1940), Boston, to 1903 [1]
label: Provenance
content: From 1903 to 1919
label: Provenance
content: Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Bunkio Matsuki in 1903 [2]
label: Provenance
content: From 1920
label: Provenance
content: Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [2]
label: Provenance
content: Notes:
label: Provenance
content: [1] See Original Kakemono and Makimono List, L. 333, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. This object exhibits seals, colophons, or inscriptions that could provide additional information regarding the object’s history; see Curatorial Remarks in the object record for further details.
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: Women in Chinese Painting (November 9, 2013 to April 27, 2014)
label: Exhibition History
content: East of Eden: Gardens in Asian Art (February 24 to May 13, 2007)
label: Exhibition History
content: Palaces and Pavilions: Grand Architecture in Chinese Painting (September 29, 2002 to March 30, 2003)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Bunkio Matsuki 松木文恭 (1867-1940) (C.L. Freer source)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)
place: label: Origin
content: China
topic: label: Topic
content: court
label: Topic
content: playing
label: Topic
content: water
label: Topic
content: fishing
label: Topic
content: music
label: Topic
content: Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911)
label: Topic
content: child
label: Topic
content: lotus
label: Topic
content: woman
label: Topic
content: go
label: Topic
content: palace
label: Topic
content: pavilion
label: Topic
content: garden
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: F1903.114
objectType: label: Type
content: Painting
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: CC0
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: Ink and color on silk
label: Dimensions
content: H x W (image): 38.4 x 314.4 cm (15 1/8 x 123 3/4 in)