Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Unfolding Nature: Images of Summer on Chinese and Japanese Fans

(from 10th Jul until 7th Oct 2012)

Enjoy the summery scenes on fan paintings from the Chinese and Japanese reserve collection.

Detail of Praying mantis, bee, and prunus blossom, by Chen Fen, China, 1881 (Museum No: EA1966.200)
Lily, rock, and dragonflyfront

© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Reference URL
?

Actions

Send e-mail

Contact us about this object

Send e-mail

Send to a friend

Lily, rock, and dragonfly

  • Description

    A garden rock takes up the key role in the composition of this fan painting. The four aesthetic qualities of rocks – thinness, openness, perforations, and wrinkling – are highly regarded among Chinese scholars, who have collected, appreciated, and painted rocks for over 1000 years. A rock is not only a garden miniature to the grand peaks in nature, but also an expression of the owner’s personality. As a balance to the ‘bony’ texture of the rock, the lily and the red dragonfly are painted in the renowned ‘boneless’ style (see also [EA1964.234]), in which the soft touch of a brush lends an almost transparent effect to the fragile petals and wings.

  • Details

    show all
    Associated place
    Asia › China (place of creation)
    Date
    19th century (1801 - 1900)
    Artist/maker
    Liu Baoru (active 19th century) (artist)
    Material and technique
    ink and colour on paper
    Dimensions
    mount 40.3 x 55.3 cm (height x width)
    painting 18.6 x 53.3 cm sight size (height x width)
    Material index
    processed material › paper
    Technique index
    covered › coated › painted,
    marked › painted,
    decorated › painted,
    painted
    Object type index
    clothing › personal accessory › fan › fan-painting,
    visual representation › painting,
    visual representation › painting › fan-painting
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Purchased, 1966.
    Accession no.
    EA1966.203

  • Further reading

    Vainker, Shelagh, Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2000), no. 2.26 on p. 230, illus. p. 231 fig. 2.26

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Publications online

Notice

Objects from past exhibitions may have now returned to our stores or a lender. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so please contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.

© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum