Mandarin Duck (1500s): Art, History and Details

Mandarin Duck (1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577).

The work and its context

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

In this painting, the artist depicted a scene of a solitary duck floating by reeds in a subtle arrangement of dry and wet, light and dark ink tones which conveys the tranquility of the moment.

Object facts

• Title: Mandarin Duck
• Date: 1500s
• Creator attribution: Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577)
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll; ink on paper
• Dimensions: Painting only: 30 x 41.4 cm (11 13/16 x 16 5/16 in.); Including mounting: 110 x 58.4 cm (43 5/16 x 23 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1985.246

Collection credit

The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cunningham, Michael R. “Painting the Poetry of the Natural World.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 7 (September 1988): 279–291.

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.