Tigers and Leopard Frolicking (1700s): Art, History and Details

Tigers and Leopard Frolicking (1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This monochrome composition depicts a tiger and her young playing at stalking one another in a stand of pine. Tigers, considered messengers of mountain spirits, and are often paired with leopards, mistakenly thought to be baby tigers. The signature written at the upper left of the painting reads "The mountain recluse of Honam," possibly referring to a painter from Jeolla province in Korea.

Object facts

• Title: Tigers and Leopard Frolicking
• Date: 1700s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink on paper
• Dimensions: Painting only: 91.4 x 163.8 cm (36 x 64 1/2 in.); Overall: 208.3 x 193.4 cm (82 x 76 1/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1998.292

A detail from the museum

Korean artists during the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) often described leopards as baby tigers, explaining why in this painting tigers and leopards are shown together as a family.

Collection credit

Gift of Leighton R. and Rosemarie Longhi

Further reading listed by the museum

• Yi, Tae-ho. 500nyeonman ui gwihyang: ilboneseo doraon joseon geurim [500년만의 귀향: 일본에서 돌아온 조선 그림]. Seoul: Hakgojae Gallery, 2010.
• Tigers in East Asian Art [동 아시아 의 호랑이 미술 ]. Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 2018.

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.