Conversation in Autumn (1732): Art, History and Details

Conversation in Autumn (1732) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Hua Yan (Chinese, 1682–c. 1765).

The work and its context

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

Two figures sit conversing in a thatched cottage. This painting illustrates two poetic lines: My guest came to sit beyond the dust, In a narrow room, we talked about the autumnal sounds of autumn. Hua Yan presented an intimate world—simple and rustic—amid a landscape. The cool wilderness depicted in this work conveys an aloofness that may reveal the inner world of a scholar-artist who failed the civil service examination but preserved a sense of pride and endurance in his humble surroundings.

Object facts

• Title: Conversation in Autumn
• Date: 1732
• Creator attribution: Hua Yan (Chinese, 1682–c. 1765)
• Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink and light color on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 218.5 x 71.7 cm (86 x 28 1/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1954.263

A detail from the museum

A barren tree on the lower left has a hole in its lower trunk through which is visible a young servant carrying food to the gentlemen in the cottage.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Deng, Qiumei 鄧秋枚. Shen zhou da guan 神州大觀. Shanghai: Shen zhou guo guang she, 1912.
• Kawai, Senro 河井荃廬, editor. Shina nanga taisei 支那南畫大成. Tōkyō: Kōbunsha, 1935.
• Pan, Zunqi 潘遵祈. Xu jing zhai suo cang ming hua ji 虛靜齋所藏名畫集. Shanghai: Shang wu yin shu guan, Minguo 24 [1935].

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.