A Hundred Birds and the Three Friends (1400–1425): Art, History and Details

A Hundred Birds and the Three Friends (1400–1425) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Bian Wenjin (Chinese, about 1354–1428).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In this hanging scroll birds rest and frolic among pines, bamboo, and flowering plum, plants known as “the three friends.” Due to their endurance in winter, they symbolize perseverance and friendship in adverse times. The naturalistic depiction of the birds refers to the bird-and-flower painting tradition of the Art Academy of the Song dynasty. The painter Bian Wenjin served at the court of the Ming dynasty Yongle Emperor (reigned 1402–24). This painting may have been hung in a private studio or palace hall on appropriate occasions.

Object facts

• Title: A Hundred Birds and the Three Friends
• Date: 1400–1425
• Creator attribution: Bian Wenjin (Chinese, about 1354–1428)
• Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 153.5 x 95.4 cm (60 7/16 x 37 9/16 in.); Overall with knobs: 245 x 110 cm (96 7/16 x 43 5/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1980.12

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.
• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1980.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 68, no. 6 (June 1981): 163–219.
• Barnhart, Richard M., Mary Ann Rogers, and Richard Stanley-Baker. Painters of the Great Ming: The Imperial Court and the Zhe School. Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1993.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.