Poet Fisherman (1800s): Art, History and Details

Poet Fisherman (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This album leaf depicts the 8th-century Chinese official and Daoist scholar Zhang Zhihe sitting on a raft buffeted by waves. He drinks wine from a small cup, and gazes up at a crane flying above him. Behind him are two large jars, one covered with an overturned lotus leaf. The handle of a ladle emerges from the other. His fishing rod is balanced at his side, but its line is twisted uselessly. Based on its iconography, the painting is likely modeled after an image from an illustrated woodblock edition of the Chinese text Liexian Zuan (Biographies of Exemplary Immortals). The biographical inscription above him reads, "he is a recluse among the rivers and lakes. He calls himself ‘Fishing Disciple Amidst Mists and Waves.’ He is always fishing without bait for Zhi has no need for fish." A rectangular seal in relief appears to the right of the inscription, while a square seal in relief appears to the left. Neither is legible.

Object facts

• Title: Poet Fisherman
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: album leaf from a set; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Overall: 22.5 x 24 cm (8 7/8 x 9 7/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1990.70

A detail from the museum

The lid that covers a tall crackle-patterned jar is a large lotus leaf.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sŏn, Sŭng-hye. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011.
• Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392-1910. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014.
• Narrative Figure Paintings of the Joseon Dynasty [조선 시대 고사 인물화]. Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 2016.

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.