Returning to the Village in a Rainstorm (1530): Art, History and Details

Returning to the Village in a Rainstorm (1530) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Xie Shichen (Chinese, 1487–after 1567).

The work and its context

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

This scroll depicts a wind- and rainswept landscape with figures in the countryside struggling against a late summer monsoon rainstorm. Such weather was familiar to residents of the lower Yangzi delta. Xie Shichen spent most of his life in the Suzhou area. Details of his career are scant, but his surviving works suggest that he made his living as a professional painter. This painting conveys drama and anecdotal observations, characteristic of Zhe school paintings, such as the one by Lü Wenying, CMA 1970.76.

Object facts

• Title: Returning to the Village in a Rainstorm
• Date: 1530
• Creator attribution: Xie Shichen (Chinese, 1487–after 1567)
• Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Handscroll; ink and light color on silk
• Dimensions: Overall: 40.3 x 425.4 cm (15 7/8 x 167 1/2 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Handscroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1975.94

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sirén, Osvald. A History of Later Chinese Painting. London: The Medici Society, 1938.
• Sirén, Osvald. Kinas Konst under Tre årtusenden. Stockholm: Natur och kultur, 1943.
• Sirén, Osvald. Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles. New York: Ronald Press, 1956.

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.