Elephant, Horse, and Hare (1788): Art, History and Details

Elephant, Horse, and Hare (1788) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Min Zhen (Chinese, 1730–after 1788).

The work and its context

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

Min Zhen, who was orphaned at age 12 and developed an eccentric personality, was trained by Tang Yin (1682–1756), a writer, playwright, and superintendent of the imperial porcelain workshops in Jingdezhen. The connection to him may have enabled Min to stay in Beijing for a decade from around 1773. It is not clear whether he ever resided in Yangzhou, but his style is in many instances reminiscent of that of Yangzhou artist Huang Shen. The album was painted for the artist's friend Dailili Shanren in exchange for a scholar’s stone. The paintings demonstrate Min Zhen’s versatility and mature style in the last years of his life. This leaf, Elephant, Horse, and Hare, seems to exhibit a contest, and may be associated with the recipient’s affinity to Buddhism (elephant), Confucianism (horse), and Daoism (hare).

Object facts

• Title: Elephant, Horse, and Hare
• Date: 1788
• Creator attribution: Min Zhen (Chinese, 1730–after 1788)
• Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: album leaf, ink on paper
• Dimensions: Overall single page: 36.8 x 22.1 cm (14 1/2 x 8 11/16 in.); Painting: 29 x 18.4 cm (11 7/16 x 7 1/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1985.71.1

A detail from the museum

The artist might have seen an elephant in the imperial zoo when he worked in Beijing from 1773 to 1784.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ding, Nianxian 丁念先. Nian sheng lou du hua xiao ji [念聖樓讀畫小紀 = Chinese calligraphy and painting of various dynasties in the collection of Nianshenglou]. Taibei: Wen xing za zhi she, 1961.
• Fukunaga, Takehiko 福永武彥, and Howard L. Rogers. Kinnō, Bunjinga suihen. chiyūgo (9) 金農, 文人画粋編. 中国篇 9. Tōkyō: Chūōkoronsha, 1976.
• Sotheby's, Parke, Bernet, New York. Fine Chinese Paintings. June 3, 1985 sale.

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.