Drinking in the Moonlight (late 1100s–early 1200s): Art, History and Details

Drinking in the Moonlight (late 1100s–early 1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Ma Yuan (Chinese, c. 1150–after 1255).

The work and its context

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

Once the moon rises and the wine is finished, perhaps the reclined tipsy gentleman will return to the stone table, where ink, paper, and brush can be seen. For moon enthusiasts in Hangzhou, there was a site named Yue Yan, or Moon Cliff, behind the imperial precincts on Mount Fenghuang. With its geographical features of receding craggy rocks leading to the framed full moon, there is good reason to believe that the scene depicts this specific site. The association of this painting with Ma Yuan is stylistically based. However, the brushwork accords more with the aesthetic approach of his son, Ma Lin.

Object facts

• Title: Drinking in the Moonlight
• Date: late 1100s–early 1200s
• Creator attribution: Ma Yuan (Chinese, c. 1150–after 1255)
• Culture: China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Album leaf; ink on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 24.5 x 25 cm (9 5/8 x 9 13/16 in.); Overall: 67.6 x 39.2 cm (26 5/8 x 15 7/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1997.89

A detail from the museum

The gentleman depicted is relaxing with a cup of wine in his hand.

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry

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.
• Suzuki, Kei 鈴木敬. Chūgoku kaiga sōgō zuroku [中國繪畫總合圖錄 = Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Paintings], 第 1卷. アメリカ·カナダ篇 [= vol. 1 American and Canadian collections]. Tōkyō: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1982.
• Li, Huishu. Exquisite Moments: West Lake & Southern Song Art. New York: China Institute Gallery, China Institute: Distributed by Art Media Resources, Ltd., 2001.

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.