Wang Wending, Chinese, 1877–1927; Gathering of the Immortals, 1919 or 1920; set of 12 hanging scrolls mounted as a pair of six-panel folding screens: ink and color on gold paper; 86 3/4 x 98 5/8 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Funds given by Miss Helen M. Longmire, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley F. Jackes, Mrs. G. Gordon Hertslet, the Columbia Terminals Company Charitable Trust, Mrs. Clark P. Fiske, and donors to the 1983 Art Enrichment Fund 42:1984.1
Figural Subjects in Chinese Art
March 19–October 17, 2021- Location
- Gallery 225
This installation occurred in the past. The archival installation summary below describes the installation as it was conceived while on view.
Figural Subjects in Chinese Art highlights the treatment of figural subjects in various scales and against different backgrounds. In addition, the exhibition addresses the connoisseurship of Chinese painting, which has been greatly transformed during the past century. The long-accepted tradition of copying masterworks and reusing titles of earlier examples had contributed to the difficulty of assigning dates to artworks. Several of the works on view in this installation have been reattributed to different artists from different time periods since they became part of the Museum’s Asian art collection.
The oldest work in this installation is the hanging scroll titled Beauty in a Bamboo Grove. When it entered the Museum’s collection in 1920, it bore an attribution to the artist Zhou Wenju (active 937–961), a court painter of the Southern Tang Kingdom (937–975). Studies now show it was painted in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Lady Holding a Parrot, formerly thought to be a painting from the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), is now accepted as a work from the second half of the Ming dynasty. The woman’s dress, hair, and cosmetics are presented in the recognizable style of the Ming professional master painter Qiu Ying (c.1494–1552). Boating on a Snowy Night, previously attributed to Li Tang (c.1050–after 1130), a landscape master of the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127), is now known to be an 18th-century copy of a composition made famous by Qiu Ying.
Joining the reattributed hanging scrolls in its representation of figural subjects, an early 20th-century folding screen by Wang Wending (1877–1927), Gathering of the Immortals, depicts a Daoist subject that has a long history in Chinese visual art.
Gallery 225 is devoted to the periodic rotation of East Asian works on silk and paper and related objects. Figural Subjects in Chinese Art is curated by Philip Hu, curator of Asian art.
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