A Prunus in the Moonlight (1300s): Art, History and Details

A Prunus in the Moonlight (1300s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Wang Mian (Chinese, 1287–1359).

The work and its context

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

The plum flourishes in the mild climate of the south, and it was not before the Six Dynasties period (220– 589 CE) that the motif began to be appreciated by southern artists, many of whom had emigrated from the north. Wang Mian from Zhejiang province had failed the civil and military service examinations and later rejected appointments under the Mongol government. Instead, he chose to return home, making a living by selling plum paintings. Few of Wang’s works have survived, but they demonstrate that by his time the ink-plum (momei) genre was fully developed.

Object facts

• Title: A Prunus in the Moonlight
• Date: 1300s
• Creator attribution: Wang Mian (Chinese, 1287–1359)
• Culture: China, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 164.6 x 94.6 cm (64 13/16 x 37 1/4 in.); Overall with knobs: 260.6 x 126.3 cm (102 5/8 x 49 3/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1974.26

A detail from the museum

The painting portrays the plum in the nighttime, as indicated by the tint of the background and the presence of the moon.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1974." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 62, No. 3, (Mar., 1975), pp. 62–102.
• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1974.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 62, no. 3 (March 1975): 62–102.
• "Annual Report for 1974.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 62, no. 6, 1975, pp. 175–209.

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.