Portrait of Feng Ping 馮平像
date: label: Date
content: ca. 1056
label: Period
content: Northern Song dynasty
name: label: Sitter
content: Feng Ping 馮平
notes: label: Label
content: To learn more about this and similar objects, visit http://www.asia.si.edu/SongYuan/default.asp Song and Yuan Dynasty Painting and Calligraphy.
label: Provenance
content: From at least 1862 to 1868
label: Provenance
content: Di Xuegeng (1820-after 1897) [1]
label: Provenance
content: From 1868 to not later than 1892
label: Provenance
content: Wang, given by Di Xuegeng in 1868 [2]
label: Provenance
content: From at least 1892
label: Provenance
content: Shengyu (1850-1900), purchased from Wang prior to 1892 [3]
label: Provenance
content: To about 1916
label: Provenance
content: Wanyan Jingxian (ca. 1848-50 – ca. 1927-29) [4]
label: Provenance
content: About 1916
label: Provenance
content: Lai-yuan & Company, Shanghai [5]
label: Provenance
content: From 1916 to 1948
label: Provenance
content: Tonying and Company, New York [6]
label: Provenance
content: From 1948
label: Provenance
content: Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from Tonying and Company [7]
label: Provenance
content: Notes:
label: Provenance
content: [1] The painting was a part of an album of five portraits produced around the year 1056 and collectively known as Suiyang wulao tu (Five Elders of Suiyang). Two other portraits from the same set are in the collection of Yale University Art Gallery. The fifth portrait is in the collection of Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The wooden covers of the album, the title page and a number of colophons relating to the portraits are also in the Metropolitan Museum. The information included in the colophons in the Metropolitan Museum collection along with those recorded in the catalogue Tiewang shanhu (1600), makes it possible to reconstruct the history of the painting. See Thomas Lawton, Chinese Figure Painting (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1973), p. 164-70 and “Song and Yuan Painting and Calligraphy,” http://www.asia.si.edu/songyuan/F1948.11/F1948-11.Documentation.pdf, accessed on November 20, 2012.
label: Provenance
content: [2] Di Xuegeng was forced to give the painting to the official named Wang. See Lawton 1973, cited in note 1.
label: Provenance
content: [3] See Lawton 1973, cited in note 1.
label: Provenance
content: [4] The painting along with four other portraits from the set was reproduced in F. S. Kwen, A Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient and Genuine Chinese Paintings (Guhua liuzhen) (Shanghai, Lai-yuan & Company, 1916), cat. no. 60: “The Five Old Men of Suiyang (Album containing five pictures).” The catalogue listed the set as owned by the Manchu collector, Wanyan Jingxian.
label: Provenance
content: [5] See Kwen’s catalogue, cited in note 4. The catalogue illustrated sixty paintings from various collections in China which were delivered to Charles Lang Freer for his purchase consideration by Kwen’s associate, C. T. Loo in October 1916. Freer, however, did not make any purchases and shortly thereafter the album was broken up. See Freer’s letters to Agnes E. Meyer, dated to October 10, 1916 and October 24, 1916, Agnes E. Meyer Papers, Library of Congress.
label: Provenance
content: [6] C. F. Yau (Yao Shulai) was a manager at the Tonying & Company’s branch in New York. According to Yau’s statement, the Tonying & Company was the original American dealer for the Suiyang wulao tu album, see Li Lin-ts’an, “The Five Old Men of Sui-yang,” National Palace Museum Bulletin 8, no. 5 (November -December 1973), p. 10 and Ingrid Larsen, “‘Don’t Send Ming or Later Pictures’: Charles Lang Freer and the First Major Collection of Chinese Painting in an American Museum,” Ars Orientalis vol. 40 (2011), p. 26, 37, note 135.
label: Provenance
content: [7] See A. G. Wenley’s letter to C. F. Yau, Tonying & Company, dated to July 12, 1948, copy in object file, and Tonying & Company’s invoice, listing two paintings, F1948.10 and F1948.11, dated to July 14, 1948, copy in object file.
label: Collection
content: Freer Gallery of Art Collection
label: Exhibition History
content: Masterpieces of Chinese Painting (IV) (June 12 to November 28, 2010)
label: Exhibition History
content: In Human Form: Images of the Secular and Divine in Chinese Painting (January 31, 1996 to January 7, 1997)
label: Exhibition History
content: Masterpieces of Chinese Painting (I) (August 3, 1984 to February 7, 1985)
label: Exhibition History
content: Chinese Figure Painting (September 17, 1973 to January 3, 1975)
label: Exhibition History
content: Chinese Album Leaves and Lacquer (February 22, 1971 to November 22, 1971)
label: Exhibition History
content: Chinese and Japanese Art--Lacquer and Paintings (August 18, 1967 to October 14, 1969)
label: Exhibition History
content: Chinese Art (January 1, 1963 to March 6, 1981)
label: Exhibition History
content: Untitled Exhibition, Chinese Ceramics (March 7, 1957 to January 1, 1963)
label: Exhibition History
content: Centennial Exhibition, Galleries 14 and 15 (February 25, 1956 to March 1, 1957)
label: Exhibition History
content: Untitled Exhibition, Chinese Metalwork and Painting, East Corridor (February 15, 1955 to August 26, 1955)
label: Exhibition History
content: Special Exhibition, Chinese Art (April 20, 1954 to November 16, 1954)
label: Exhibition History
content: Special Mirror Exhibition (November 16, 1954 to February 25, 1955)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Di Xuegeng (1820-1899)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Wang
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Shengyu (1850-1900)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Wanyan Jingxian (ca. 1848-ca. 1927-29)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Lai-Yuan & Company (ca. 1915-April 1921)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Tonying and Company 通運公司 (established 1902)
place: label: Origin
content: China
topic: label: Topic
content: portrait
label: Topic
content: Northern Song dynasty (960 - 1127)
label: Topic
content: China
label: Topic
content: Chinese Art
setName: label: Related Online Resources
content: Google Arts & Culture
label: Related Online Resources
content: Song and Yuan Dynasty Painting and Calligraphy
label: See more items in
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: F1948.11
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): 42.4 x 32.6 cm (16 11/16 x 12 13/16 in)