Rei Shōjo (Ling Zhaonu) (1500s): Art, History and Details

Rei Shōjo (Ling Zhaonu) (1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Shunoku Sōen (Japanese, 1529–1611).

The work and its context

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

Legend has it that Chinese beauty Ling Zhaonu, whose name is pronounced Rei Shōjo in Japanese, was a model of devotion to her parents. She put great effort into selling baskets made by her elderly father, a devout Buddhist, thereby keeping the family afloat financially. The verse on the painting relates her story, and was inscribed by a Zen monk.

Object facts

• Title: Rei Shōjo (Ling Zhaonu)
• Date: 1500s
• Creator attribution: Shunoku Sōen (Japanese, 1529–1611)
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll, ink and light color on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 97.6 x 37.2 cm (38 7/16 x 14 5/8 in.); Overall: 183.4 x 49.3 cm (72 3/16 x 19 7/16 in.); with knobs: 183.4 x 54.5 cm (72 3/16 x 21 7/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1995.245

Collection credit

Gift of Rosemarie and Leighton Longhi

Further reading listed by the museum

• Tōyō kaiga no seika: tokubetsuten: Kurīvurando Bijutsukan no korekushon kara [東洋絵画の精華 : 特别展 : クリーヴラント美術館のコレクションから = Highlights of Asian painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art]. Nara, Japan: Nara National Museum, 1998.
• Admired from afar: masterworks of Japanese painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art [クリーブランド美術館展 : 名画でたどる日本の美 Kurīburando Bijutsukan ten: meiga de tadoru Nihon no bi ]. Tokyo: Tōkyō Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, 2014.
• Longhi, Leighton R. Leighton R. Longhi: Forty-Five Years in Asian Art. [New York, N.Y.]: Leighton R. Longhi, 2019.

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.