Album of Miscellaneous Subjects, Leaf 1 (early 1650s): Art, History and Details

Album of Miscellaneous Subjects, Leaf 1 (early 1650s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Fan Qi (Chinese, 1616–after 1694).

The work and its context

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

Fan Qi's painting on leaf one may be inspired by Tang dynasty poet's Li Bai's line: A small boat has sailed through ten thousand layers of hills. Wang Wu's colophon facing the painting reads: A narrow path coiling, winds across rock foundations; Old vines and ancient trees meet the sunset's slanting rays. Unaware that my small boat has gone so far, By the time it reverses its oars, the green mountains will be half-covered with clouds.

Object facts

• Title: Album of Miscellaneous Subjects, Leaf 1
• Date: early 1650s
• Creator attribution: Fan Qi (Chinese, 1616–after 1694)
• Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: album cover
• Dimensions: Image: 12.6 x 17.3 cm (4 15/16 x 6 13/16 in.); Overall: 21 x 22 cm (8 1/4 x 8 11/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1975.22.1

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1975.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 63, no. 2, 1976, pp. 31–71.
• 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.
• Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015.

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.