Ramblers over a Winding Stream (before 1330): Art, History and Details

Ramblers over a Winding Stream (before 1330) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Luo Zhichuan (Chinese, active 1280s–1320s).

The work and its context

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

This album leaf is one of few surviving paintings by Luo Zichuan. During the Yuan dynasty, the Luo family of painters in Jiangxi province, in Southern China, had a network of patrons extending their reputation all the way to the capital city of Beijing. The small, rounded figures crossing the bridge on the right are gentlemen enjoying a ramble, rather than ascetics or travelers. The composition is dominated in the center foreground by “crab-claw” trees with knotty trunks and twisting branches. Their robust forms show Luo’s connection to the earlier master, Guo Xi (about 1020–about 1090).

Object facts

• Title: Ramblers over a Winding Stream
• Date: before 1330
• Creator attribution: Luo Zhichuan (Chinese, active 1280s–1320s)
• Culture: China, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Album leaf; ink on silk
• Dimensions: Painting only: 24.5 x 25.2 cm (9 5/8 x 9 15/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1915.536

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. and Wai-Kam Ho. "Scattered Pearls beyond the Ocean." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Feb., 1964), pp. 23–39.
• Lee, Sherman E., and Wai-kam Ho. Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yüan Dynasty, 1279-1368. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art; [distributed by the Press of Case Western Reserve University], 1968.
• Wang, Chi-chʻien. Album Leaves from the Sung and Yuan Dynasties. New York. China House Gallery. Catalogues. 1968-70. New York: China House Gallery, the China Institute in America, 1970.

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.