Fisherman's Joy (1572): Art, History and Details

Fisherman's Joy (1572) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Qian Gu (Chinese, 1508–c. 1578).

The work and its context

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

This painting has a scene showing two small crafts, each manned by two fishermen, practicing a traditional fishing method. In one of them, a man uses a bamboo pole to direct the movements of a cormorant bird sent into the water. Cormorant fishing, witnessed in some areas of the lower Yangzi River, appears in Zhe school paintings. Qian Gu may have borrowed these narrative figure scenes from Zhe school paintings, while his vantage point, brushwork, and soft tones align with the Wu school style. Scenes of fishermen appealed to urban and educated audiences who idealized the self-sufficient independence of fisherfolk.

Object facts

• Title: Fisherman's Joy
• Date: 1572
• Creator attribution: Qian Gu (Chinese, 1508–c. 1578)
• Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Handscroll; ink and light color on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 31.4 x 355.2 cm (12 3/8 x 139 13/16 in.); Overall: 37 x 989.4 cm (14 9/16 x 389 1/2 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Handscroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1977.56

Collection credit

The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Griswold, William, Xiaofei Tian, Richard Von Glahn, Feng Zhao, S. J. Vainker, Masaaki Itakura, Jiang Wu, et al. China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. Edited by Clarissa von Spee. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023.

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.