Spring Rain Thatched Hut (1650): Art, History and Details

Spring Rain Thatched Hut (1650) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Wang Jianzhang (Chinese, active 1621–1662).

The work and its context

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

With its striking simplicity, this painting captures the pure serenity of a private garden in the moist atmosphere of a spring morning on a small river. Painted in the style of Ni Zan, Wang Jianzhang dedicated this work to his patron-friend Gong Weiliu (1611-1680). Gong retired from government service after the fall of the Ming dynasty and constructed a garden-retreat at his native home in Taizhou, Jiangsu province. He invited scholars and poets from his literary society to contribute writings of his estate, which are here mounted together with the painting in this scroll.

Object facts

• Title: Spring Rain Thatched Hut
• Date: 1650
• Creator attribution: Wang Jianzhang (Chinese, active 1621–1662)
• Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: handscroll, ink on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 31 x 81.5 cm (12 3/16 x 32 1/16 in.); Overall: 34.2 x 1164 cm (13 7/16 x 458 1/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Handscroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 2008.108

A detail from the museum

Gong Weiliu, the owner of the estate portrayed here, had received his prestigious jinshi degree in 1643, but his official career was thwarted by the collapse of the Ming dynasty the following year.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Moss, Paul. This Single Feather of Auspicious Light: Old Chinese Painting and Calligraphy. [London]: Sydney L. Moss Ltd, 2010.
• “Art of Asia Acquired by North American Museums, 2008-2009.” Archives of Asian Art, vol. 60, 2010, pp. 95–159.
• Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015.

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.