Horse Stable (early 1500s): Art, History and Details

Horse Stable (early 1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Prized horses in stables may be the main theme of the pair of screens to which this screen belongs, but a lot of action is happening on the verandas. Here, people challenge one another at two different board games, go and shōgi. A lively atmosphere develops in the interplay of the dynamic horses and the strategic games.

Object facts

• Title: Horse Stable
• Date: early 1500s
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: One of a pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Painting: 146.1 x 346.6 cm (57 1/2 x 136 7/16 in.); Mounted: 163.3 x 366 cm (64 5/16 x 144 1/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Folding screen
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1934.373.1

A detail from the museum

Shōgi means "military leader's board game."

Collection credit

Edward L. Whittemore Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hollis, Howard C. “A Pair of Japanese Screens.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 24, no. 1 (January 1937): 5–8, 15.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Lee, Sherman E, Ursula Korneitchouk, Michael R Cunningham, Ursula Korneitchouk, Cleveland Museum of Art, Japan House Gallery, Japan Society (New York, N.Y.), and Japan House Gallery. One Thousand Years of Japanese Art (650-1650): From the Cleveland Museum of Art: Catalogue. New York: Japan Society, 1981.

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.