The Knickknack Peddler (1212): Art, History and Details

The Knickknack Peddler (1212) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Li Song (Chinese, active c. 1190–c. 1230).

The work and its context

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

The court artist Li Song from Hangzhou excelled in meticulous depictions of children, peddlers, and their various goods. Here, he captures a dramatic scene of children attacking a snake with a stick and stone. The peddler rushes toward the children, leaving his merchandise unattended. Painted during the reign of emperor Ningzong, the drama unfolding around vulnerable children may allude to Ningzong’s nine sons who died young, leaving him without a direct male descendant.

Object facts

• Title: The Knickknack Peddler
• Date: 1212
• Creator attribution: Li Song (Chinese, active c. 1190–c. 1230)
• Culture: China, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Album leaf; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Image: 24.1 x 26 cm (9 1/2 x 10 1/4 in.); with mat: 33.3 x 40.5 cm (13 1/8 x 15 15/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1963.582

A detail from the museum

There is a skull, upside down, near the top of the left basket.

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

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.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.