The Orchid Pavilion Gathering

Creator Name

Unknown;

Tang Yin

Cultural Context

Chinese

Date

Creation: 17th century, 18th century, 19th century, Qing dynasty

Source

Walters Art Museum

About the Work

Curationist Object Description

The Gathering at the Orchid Pavilion was a legendary poetic fete in 353 CE. Renowned calligrapher Wang Xizhi invited a group of illustrious writers for an evening of drinking and poetry. The preface of the resulting anthology survives thanks to centuries of copying as part of traditional Chinese artist training. Generations of shan shui landscape painters copied and innovated on their predecessors to create their own depictions of the famed gathering. An artist painted this version, from the 17th to 19th century, in the style of Tang Yin. Tang Yin was a Ming Dynasty landscape painter whose compositions depicted soaring, lonely mountain peaks and wide rivers. Shan shui painters often depicted scholars abdicating city life to wander through nature.

Walters Art Museum Object Description

In 353, forty-two high officials who were also poets gathered at the Orchid Pavilion to celebrate a spring festival. The poems they composed were judged, and the losers had to take a stick, retrieve one of the wine-filled cups that had been ingeniously sent down the river, and empty it.Much later, the text describing this happy occasion became a popular subject among artists, some of whom emphasized landscape, others the activities of the increasingly inebriated participants. This unsigned scroll is not easy to date. It has been dyed to make it look older than it actually is, but artificial aging has been practiced for centuries in China.For the latest information about this object, The Orchid Pavilion Gathering, visit the Online ...

Work details

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Title

The Orchid Pavilion Gathering

Creator

Unknown;

Tang Yin (link to bio), after

Worktype

Scroll painting

emakimono; hand scrolls

Cultural Context

Chinese

Material

ink and color on silk mounted on paper

Dimensions

H: 11 9/16 x L: 208 13/16 in. (29.3 x 530.4 cm)

Technique

Painting

Language

Date

Creation: 17th century, 18th century, 19th century, Qing dynasty

Creation: 17th-19th century, Qing [Ch'ing] Dynasty

Provenance

Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.; Dr. John C. Ferguson [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; John C. Ferguson Collection Sale, American Art Association, April 7, 1916, no. 228 [as by Tang Yin, ca. 1525]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1916, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Style Period

Southern School

Rights

CC0;

GNU Free Documentation License

Inscription

[Seal] At end on painting

Location

Creation: China

Source

Walters Art Museum

Subjects

Descriptive Topic: Mountain, Water, River, Plant, Tree, Landscape, Orchid Pavilion Gathering, Shan shui, Bamboo (plant), People, Man, Scholar

Topic

Curationist Contributors

Reina Gattuso; Jessica Gengler; Christina Stone

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