Scholars in a Garden
Mount: 80 1/2 × 43 inches (204.47 × 109.22 cm)
Emperors, Scholars and Temples: Tastemakers of China’s Ming and Qing Dynasties, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, January, 2017 – July 9, 2017.
Although the gentlemen in these paintings appear to be leisurely and relaxed, they practice the scholarly arts of books, calligraphy, painting and antiquities, pastimes of a scholar or official. Legends of famous gatherings of officials in garden settings became popular in paintings and decorative arts. These paintings exemplify the type of networking that happens in gatherings of scholars and officials.
Mr. Tosaku Ono, Hokkaido, Japan, before World War II;
Ignace Leo Ephrussi, Tokyo, 1948/1949-1950;
Robert E. Curtis, Ltd., Kyoto;
Purchased from Robert E. Curtis, Ltd. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1968.
John Blofeld (1913-1987), The Chinese Art of Tea (Boston: Shambhala, 1985), 130, cover color illustration (detail), frontispiece (double page). (repro.).
Carolyn Wheelwright, “Tohaku’s Black and Gold” Ars Orientalis, vol. 16 (1986), 1-31, fig. 12. (repro.).
