Portrait of Ma Shiqi (1650–1714)

Artist Gu Jianlong (Chinese, 1606 - ca. 1687)

Dateca. 1687

MediumHanging scroll; ink and color on silk

DimensionsOverall: 57 1/4 × 30 3/4 inches (145.42 × 78.11 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number34-262

On View

Not on view

Collections

East Asian Art

Terms

DescriptionBearded gentleman wearing official hat with a red tassel and a brown robe trimmed with blue; seated on a rock.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Exhibition of Oriental portraits. December 10, 1938-January 7, 1939.

Manchu Court Art, Stanford (CA) University Museum. mid-November 1954-February 6, 1955.

Gallery Label

Like the subject of an ancestor portrait, Ma Shiqi is formally dressed and looks straight at us. However, this is not an ancestor portrait but a picture of a man in midlife. In his autobiographical inscription mounted above the portrait, he describes it as an “enjoying pleasures picture.” The inscription recalls the most momentous event in his life—receiving an imperial robe from the emperor. He poses on a garden rock, a common convention in Qing portraits. A tiger skin cushion symbolizes his military bravery.

Provenance

With T’ien Shu-K’uan, Peiping (modern-day Beijing), China, by June 18, 1934 [1];

Purchased from T’ien Shu-K’uan, through Laurence Sickman, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1934.

NOTES:

[1] Sickman's purchase record, Nelson-Atkins Archives, RG80-15 William Rockhill Nelson Trust Office Files, box 1a, Art Invoices/Vouchers 1934.

Published References

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), 347-348, no. 255.

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