Fishermen-Hermits in Stream and Mountain (1300s): Art, History and Details

Fishermen-Hermits in Stream and Mountain (1300s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Zhao Yong (Chinese, c. 1289-c. 1362).

The work and its context

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

In this typical southern two shores divided by a river composition, two fishermen, each seated in the stern of his covered houseboat, troll their hooks in the swirling water, holding short rods fitted with spooling reels. Zhao Yong was a son of the southern calligrapher and statesman Zhao Mengfu, who, like his father was a scholar-official in the Mongol-Yuan government. As public servants of the Yuan state and administration, scholar-artists like the Zhaos delighted in paintings that pictured them in nature as fishermen amid vistas of Jiangnan, which they considered their home.

Object facts

• Title: Fishermen-Hermits in Stream and Mountain
• Date: 1300s
• Creator attribution: Zhao Yong (Chinese, c. 1289-c. 1362)
• Culture: China, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 85.5 x 42.5 cm (33 11/16 x 16 3/4 in.); Overall with knobs: 229 x 70 cm (90 3/16 x 27 9/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1997.93

A detail from the museum

The composition of two shores divided by a river was mostly famously associated with the Yuan painter Ni Zan.

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry

Further reading listed by the museum

• Tō Sō Gen Min meigaten-gō [唐宋元明名画展号]. Tōkyō: Tōkyō Asahi Shinbun Hakkōjo, 1928.
• Harada, Kinjirō 原田謹次郎. Shina meiga hōkan [支那名畫寶鑒 = The pageant of Chinese painting]. Tōkyō: Ōtsuka Kōgeisha, 1936.
• Zheng, Zhenduo 鄭振鐸. Tang Song yi lai ming hua ji: Yun hui zhai cang 唐宋以来名畫集: 韞輝齋藏. Shanghai: Shanghai chu ban gong si, 1947.

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.