Collection Highlights: Chinese Art

ca. 6th century B.C.E.
Eastern Zhou dynasty
Bronze
H: 28.7 W: 13.0 D: 10.3 cm
China
Gift of Arthur M. Sackler S1987.4

early 16th century
Tang Yin, (Chinese, 1470-1523)
Ming dynasty
Handscroll; ink and color on paper
H: 29.6 W: 682.1 cm
China
Purchase F1939.60

A brilliant youth, Tang Yin achieved first place in the provincial examinations that he hoped would open a career for him as an official, but scandal ruined his chances. He instead became a professional painter who received commissions from his scholar friends. This handscroll was requested by Tang's contemporary Wang Dongyuan, who followed Daoist practices meant to encourage longevity. After a prophetic dream in which Wang Dongyuan saw an immortal approaching him, Wang named his garden "Dreaming of an Immortal." It was common in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) for a garden proprietor to take the name of his garden, or a site within it, as a sobriquet, or secondary name. Thus, the painting is a "double image" that refers to Wang Dongyuan as a sleeping figure and, by extension, through the garden property itself. Tang Yin creatively captured the meaning of the garden's name by portraying Wang asleep with the dreamy emanation of an immortal floating in the sky.

12th century
Southern Song dynasty
Stoneware with Guan-type glaze
H: 23.2 W: 14.1 cm
Hangzhou, China
Gift of Charles Lang Freer F1911.338

When the Song dynasty (960–1279) court was located in north China, blue-green celadons called Ru ware were made exclusively for the palace. Characterized by a smooth glaze, either uncrazed or with faint marks like cracked ice, Ru wares provided a prototype for Guan ware, the official ware of the Southern Song (1127–1279) court, which relocated to modern-day Hangzhou. This mallet-shaped vase represents the finest of southern Guan ware. The shape of the vase resembles a mallet used to pound fibers in making paper. The direction of the crackle, here an intentional design feature, developed along stress lines created when the vessel was shaped.

mid-18th century
Giuseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining), (Italian, 1688-1766)
Qing dynasty
Qianlong reign
Ink, color, and gold on silk
H: 113.6 W: 64.3 cm
China
Purchase--Anonymous donor and Museum funds F2000.4

This unusual portrait reflects upon the political strategy of the Qianlong emperor (reigned 1736–96) as well as his personal religious beliefs. Moreover, it is testimony to the multicultural nature of his court and empire. The emperor has had himself portrayed in the center of a thangka, a traditional Tibetan-style religious painting, but he called upon the Italian artist Giuseppe Castiglione, who was a Jesuit missionary serving at the Chinese court, to paint his face. By having himself depicted as the enlightened being Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, the Qianlong emperor positioned himself squarely in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy. The landscape surrounding him is filled with auspicious clouds and a representation of the five-peaked, Wutaishan sacred mountain in China.

The inscription on the painting proclaims Manjusri to be the ruler of the Buddhist faith. By assuming Manjusri's identity, the Qianlong emperor indirectly laid claim to that role for himself. This was politically significant because relations between the Qianlong court and the Mongol and Tibetan residents of the empire were couched in Buddhist, rather than Confucian, cultural rhetoric. The Qianlong emperor ordered thangkas, with himself as the central deity, displayed in the Tibetan Buddhist chapels that he erected in Peking (modern-day Beijing). One thangka that he sent to the Seventh Dalai Lama is currently displayed in the Potala, the Dalai Lama's residence in Lhasa, Tibet.