Nine Horses
Mount: 12 3/4 x 215 1/2 inches (32.39 x 547.37 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. 95.
Decoded Messages: The Symbolic Language of Chinese Animal Painting, Cincinnati Art Museum, October 9, 2009 – January 3, 2010. no. 62.
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. 35, 202.
Masterpieces of Early Chinese Painting and Calligraphy in American Collections, Shanghai Museum, 10/16/2012 - 01/17/2013, no. 1.2.
The scroll depicts stable workers feeding and grooming nine royal stallions in preparation for a parade. The imperial court treasured horses as pets and as emblems of royal power, importing strong steeds from Central Asia to serve in battle. Ren Renfa’s sure hand and fine line work made this detailed painting an important model for later followers, such as Feeding Horses reproduced below.
Chi Cheng;
Purchased from Chi Cheng by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1972.
Bizan Harada, Nihon genzai Shina meiga mokuroku [Chinese painting now in Japan] (Tokyo: 1938), 85.
Yang Weizhen, Tie yai chi [collected poetry of the author n.d. [mid-14th c.] In Yuan shi xuan [A selection of Yuan rhymed poetry], compiled 1694. (Taipei: 1967), 34.
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), 59.
Marc F. Wilson, “ The Chinese Painter and his Vision”, Apollo, special issue for the Asian art collection in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Vol. XCVII, no. 133 (March 1973):236-237, Color plate I.
Archives of Asian Art, vol. xxvii (New York: Asia Society, 1973-1974), 103, fig. 33, 33a.
Zhu Yunming, Zhushi shi lue [Survey of works by the author], Prefaced dated 1557, (Taipei: 1974), 654.
Wu Kuan, Paoweng jia cang ji [Collected works of the author] (earliest preface 1508), Sibu congkan ed. (Taipei: 1975), 69.
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), 116-119, no. 95, Color Plate V.
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), 321.
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), 353, fig. 216.
Hou-mei Sung, Decoded Messages: The Symbolic Language of Chinese Animal Painting, and Cincinnati Art Museum (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2009), 183-187, no. 62.
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), 23, fig. 35, 202, fig 221,
Shanghai bo wu guan, Masterpieces of Early Chinese Painting and Calligraphy in American Collections, Shanghai Museum, (Beijing shi: Beijing da xue chu ban she, 2012), 6-7, no. 1.2.
