Lily and Butterflies (1300s): Art, History and Details

Lily and Butterflies (1300s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Liu Shanshou (Chinese, active 1300s).

The work and its context

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

The bird is represented in pale ink, probably sketched in before the darker ink was used to finish the rock. Like the butterfly and moth above, his tail feathers echo the bamboo as well as the leaves and petals of the flowers. The Chinese wagtail can connote brotherly love. The daylily was used for various pharmaceutical purposes, especially for deadening pain in childbirth. It was also considered efficacious in relieving grief and aiding in the production of sons. The lily is in fact the real subject of this painting: it is the common symbol for motherly love. Hence, the lingering of the butterfly over a lily can signify a son's love, devotion, and yearning for his mother—the refuge from worldly woes.

Object facts

• Title: Lily and Butterflies
• Date: 1300s
• Creator attribution: Liu Shanshou (Chinese, active 1300s)
• Culture: China, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 160 x 58.4 cm (63 x 23 in.); Overall with knobs: 277.7 x 85.2 cm (109 5/16 x 33 9/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1971.132

A detail from the museum

The bird is the Chinese wagtail (motacilla chinensis).

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Zhang, Daqian 張大千. Da feng tang shu hua lu 大風堂書畫錄. Chengdu: [publisher not identified], 1943.
• Zhang Daqian 張大千. Taifudo meiseki 大風堂名蹟. Kyōto: Benrido, 1955.
• The Art Quarterly, XXXV, no. 1 (Spring 1972).

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.