Palace Ladies Tuning the Lute
Overall (height): 14 1/4 inches (36.2 cm)
Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, Nelson-Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, November 7, 1980 – January 4, 1981; The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 7 – April 5, 1981; The Asia Society, December 3, 1981 – February 28, 1982; Tokyo National Museum, October 4 – November 17, 1982, no. 6.
Senses and Sensibilities in Chinese Painting, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Missouri, December 14,2008- February 15, 2009.
Owen Roberts (1875-1955), New York, by April 19, 1932 [1];
Purchased from Roberts, through Langdon Warner, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.
NOTES:
[1] Letter from Owen Roberts to Langdon Warner, April 19, 1932, Harvard University Pusey Library, Langdon Warner Personal Archive, HUG 4872.1010, box 12, folder 15, copy in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. Owen Roberts was a member of the U.S. Supreme Court at the time he sold this painting to the Nelson-Atkins in 1932. During World War II, he chaired the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas , better known as the Roberts Commission. From 1943 to 1946, the Commission advised the U.S. Army on the preservation of cultural property and recovery of art looted by the Nazis. Langdon Warner, the Nelson-Atkins' Advisor on Asian Art, acted as an agent for the 1932 sale and later served as a Special Consultant to the Roberts Commission during the war.
Osvald Sirén, A History of Early Chinese Painting, vol.1 (London: The Medici Society, 1933), 99-100.
American Magazine of Art, 28 (New York, New York: American Federation of Arts, 1933): 528-529.
Art News, 32: 60, Dec. 9, 1933.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 94.
Lawrence Binyon, The Spirit of Man in Asian Art (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1935), 77-78, pl. 29.
New Orient Society of America, Oriental Art in America, Recent Accessions in American Museums (Chicago, Illinois: The New Orient Society of America, 1937), pl. 29.
Laurence Sickman, ed.., The University of Prints, Oriental Art, Series O, Early Chinese Art, Section II ( Newton, Massachusetts: University Prints, 1938), no. 197.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 116, fig. 16.
Osvald Sirén, Kinas konst under tre Årtusenden (Stockholm: Natur och kultur , 1942-43), 241-242, pl. 37b.
William Cohn, Chinese Painting (London: Phaidon Press, 1948), 54, fig. 20.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 139.
Zheng Zhenduo. Weida de yishu chuantong tulu (The great heritage of Chinese Art) vol. I (1951-152), ch. Shang, pls. 8-9.
Bernard S. Myers, ed. Encyclopedia of Painting: painters and painting of the world from prehistoric times to the present day (New York: Crown Publishers, 1955), pl. 89.
Osvald Sirén, Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles (New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1956-1958), I: pl 143-148; II: pl. 100.
Wang Bomin, Zhou Fang, in Zhongguo haujia zongshu (Shanghai, 1957), pl. II, figs. 3-4.
H.W. Janson, Key Monuments of the History of Art: a visual survey (New York: Abrams, 1959), pl. 341.
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 194.
Shijie meihsing chuan-chi, 15. China. Vol. 4, T’ang dynasty (Tokyo, 1962), 158, fig. 31.
Ira Moskowitz, ed. Great Drawings of All Time, Vol. IV, Oriental (New York, 1962), color pl. 881.
Alberto Martini, Capolavori nei Secoli, no. 27 (Milano, May 26, 1962), 53.
Storia dell Musica, l’Arte Musicale in Cina e nell’ Estreme Oriente, no. 137 (1968), 103.
Sherman E. Lee, A History of Far Eastern Art (New York, 1973), 266-268, color pl. 22.
La Documentation Francaise. La Vie dans la Chine Ancienne. La Route de la Soie. Diapositives, no. 6035 (June, 1978), 8.
Ross E. Taggart, George L. McKenna, and Marc F. Wilson, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. II, Art of the Orient. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 46.
Wai-Kam Ho, et al., Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and The Cleveland Museum of Art. (The Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, c1980), 8-9, no. 6, Color plate I.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 312.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 332, fig. 154.
