Westlake Panorama (mid-1700s): Art, History and Details

Westlake Panorama (mid-1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Revived by the southern imperial inspection tours, West Lake imagery became a popular subject during the early Qing dynasty. This panorama is composed of four prints, showing the Ten Scenes of the West Lake in Hangzhou along with other sights. The vanishing point perspective and the hatching lines that depict shading, water, or sky derive from European copperplate prints, introduced by missionaries to China, and were celebrated novelties in 18th-century Suzhou prints. These prints also reached Europe to furnish 18th-century palace interiors.

Object facts

• Title: Westlake Panorama
• Date: mid-1700s
• Culture: Southeast China, Suzhou, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Qianlong reign (1736–95)
• Type: Print
• Technique: One of four woodblock prints; ink on paper; printed with three woodblocks in shades of black
• Dimensions: Image: 34.6 x 55.4 cm (13 5/8 x 21 13/16 in.); Paper: 38 x 59.3 cm (14 15/16 x 23 3/8 in.)
• Collection: China - Qing Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 2025.82.1

A detail from the museum

Woodblock printing in color reached a height in China in the 1600s to 1700s. The prints were executed by means of sets of separate blocks, each carved to print a different color.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

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.