Lotuses, Insects, and Birds (1800s): Art, History and Details

Lotuses, Insects, and Birds (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Pairs of herons, kingfishers, and dragonflies punctuate a profusion of lotus in this composition that, given the orientation of the herons and the clustering of motifs in the left-hand side of the work, may have once been the left painting of a pair. Given its subject matter, this hanging scroll may have been hung for display during the summer.

Object facts

• Title: Lotuses, Insects, and Birds
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Image: 112.6 x 57.5 cm (44 5/16 x 22 5/8 in.); Overall: 174.5 x 77.5 cm (68 11/16 x 30 1/2 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1985.18

A detail from the museum

Given its subject matter of lotus flowers, herons, kingfisher, and dragonflies, this hanging scroll may have been hung for display during the summer.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Dempsey, James H. “The Annual Report for 1984.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 4 (July 1985): 242–298.
• Sŏn, Sŭng-hye. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011.
• Cha, Mi-ae. "The Volume Three of the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting and Late Joseon-Period Bird and Flower Paintings [芥子園畵傳 3집과 조선 후기 화조화]." Misulsa yeongu (2012): 53–86.

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.