Leaping Carp (1368–1644): Art, History and Details

Leaping Carp (1368–1644) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Liu Jie (Chinese, c. 1447–1520s).

The work and its context

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

With a fine ink line and graded wash, the life-like depiction of these swiftly moving carp is representative of the high quality of works by Liu Jie, a Ming dynasty court painter known for his fish paintings. The artist’s signature and seal are in the painting’s top left corner. The carp is an auspicious and popular subject in Chinese painting. Here, the leaping carp can be associated with “a carp jumping the dragon gate,” which according to mythology transforms into a dragon, emblematic of a scholar’s success in passing the civil service examinations. Another reading suggests that this carp is not leaping but guiding his offspring in worshipping heaven.

Object facts

• Title: Leaping Carp
• Date: 1368–1644
• Creator attribution: Liu Jie (Chinese, c. 1447–1520s)
• Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll, ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Image: 140.5 x 83.7 cm (55 5/16 x 32 15/16 in.); Overall: 226 x 101.2 cm (89 x 39 13/16 in.); with knobs: 226 x 109.5 cm (89 x 43 1/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1977.55

A detail from the museum

The clusters of geometric leaves painted with mineral pigments are likely water caltrap.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

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.
• Eskenazi Ltd. Two Rare Chinese Porcelain Fish Jars of the 14th and 16th Centuries: 7 November - 30 November 2002. London: Eskenazi, 2002.
• Laozi 老子 and James Legge, translator. Tao Te Ching 道德经. New York: Metro Books, 2008.

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.