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Episodes from the Career of a Yuan Official
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Episodes from the Career of a Yuan Official

Original Language Title宋人畫趙遹瀘南平夷圖
Former TitleZhao Yu's Pacification of the Barbarians South of Lu
CultureChinese
Date1279-1368
MediumHandscroll; ink and color on silk
DimensionsOverall: 15 1/2 × 156 inches (39.37 × 396.24 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust
Object number58-10
On View
On view
Gallery Location
  • 222
Collections
Exhibition History

Hsien- ch’i Tseng, Loan Exhibition of Chinese Paintings, Exh. Cat.: The Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, 1956.

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. 1961.

The Art of Southern Sung China, Asia House Gallery, New York, February 15-April 15, 1962.

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. 22.

The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, September 20, 2010- January 2, 2011. no. 230.

Sages and Heroes: Storytelling in Asian Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 12, 2025–November 30, 2025, no cat.




Gallery Label
In this work, the story is shown in several small scenes within the large architectural and landscape setting. This stylistic formula is a common method for visual storytelling but can create confusion when the original context is lost, as it is for this work. An emperor from the 1700s inscribed on this painting that Chinese general Zhao Yu (active 1111–1125) quelled the rebels of a border region. Despite the discrepancy with the images, his inscriptions reflect imperial agendas that demand loyalty and unity. Modern scholars argue the painting depicts a general who yielded to the rival regime, as seen in the figure who changes his Song dynasty uniform to the Mongol hat and white robe.
Provenance

With C. T. Loo, Inc., New York, NY, stock no. G.9136, by May 1949-1958 [1];

Purchased from C. T. Loo Chinese Art by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

NOTES:

[1] A previous stock number was GHL-7/1011. C. T. Loo and Frank Caro archive, Musée Guimet, Paris, copy of stock card in NAMA curatorial files. Following C. T. Loo's retirement, C. T. Loo, Inc. was dissolved by the summer of 1953 and the New York business continued as C. T. Loo Chinese Art under the direction of Frank Caro.



Published References

Shi qu bao ji xu bian [Catalogue of painting and calligraphy in the imperial collection: sequel ( part II)] . Compiled by Wang Chieh et al. ; commissioned by the Qianlong emperor 1791, completed 1793. Facsimile reprint. (Shanghai, Yushufang 1948), 106a-107b.

Hsien- ch’i Tseng, Loan Exhibition of Chinese Paintings, Exh. Cat.: Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology (Toronto: 1956), no. 2.

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), 200.

James Cahill, The Art of Southern Sung China, Asia House Gallery (New York: 1962), no. 6, pl. 29. 

Susan Bush, “Clearing after Snow in the Min Mountains’ and Chinese Chin Landscape Painting” Oriental Art vol. XI ( 1965), no. 3, 163-172, fig. 7.

Horizon History (1969), 180-181.

Terukazu Akiyama, Chugoku bijutsu, vol I, (1973), 222-223, pl. 12.

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), 53.

Kei Suzuki, “Japanese Landscape Painting” Museum (1977), 18, no. 313, fig. 9.

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), 37-40, no. 22.

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), 316.

Fu Xinian, "Fangmei suojian Zhongguo gudai minghua zaji, xia" Wenwu, 1993, no.7, 73-80, figs. 1-2.

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), 347, fig. 197.

James C.Y. Watt, The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Yale University Press, 2010), 45, 212, Fig. 51, 230.

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.


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