Twelve Views of Tiger Hill (after 1490): Art, History and Details

Twelve Views of Tiger Hill (after 1490) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Shen Zhou (Chinese, 1427–1509).

The work and its context

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

Views of Tiger Hill depicts a historic site a few miles northwest of Suzhou. The scenes simulate a visit from arriving by boat at the foot of the mountain to climbing to Cloudy Cliff Monastery. Representations of the artist’s mature style, Shen Zhou included views in subtle colors in the suite of monochrome scenes. A Suzhou native, Shen Zhou was supported by family wealth and rejected an official career in favor of life as a retired scholar. Turning to painting in midlife, he is regarded as the founder of the Wu School of painting, with its center in Suzhou.

Object facts

• Title: Twelve Views of Tiger Hill
• Date: after 1490
• Creator attribution: Shen Zhou (Chinese, 1427–1509)
• Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Album of twelve leaves; ink or ink and slight color on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 36.5 x 49.9 cm (14 3/8 x 19 5/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Album leaf
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1964.371

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. Chinese Landscape Painting. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1954.
• Sirén, Osvald. Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles. New York: Ronald Press, 1956.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

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.