Composing Poetry on a Spring Outing
Overall: 11 7/8 × 258 inches (30.16 × 655.32 cm)
- 222
Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. 1963.
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. 51.
Senses and Sensibilities in Chinese Painting, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, December 14, 2008- February 15, 2009.
Masterpieces of Early Chinese Painting and Calligraphy in American Collections, Shanghai Museum, October 16, 2012- January 17, 2013, no.19.
Journey through Mountains and Rivers: Chinese Landscapes Ancient and Modern, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 8- April 28, 2013.
On an agreeable spring day, movers carry loads of goods for a poetry party. Across the outcrop, bamboo, pines, and willows thrive alongside the pavilion and bridge in a large garden. To the left, an audience watches a gentleman composing a poem. More guests enjoy the sights and sound of nature.
Ma Yuan was famous for his paintings depicting poets enjoying scenic beauty, such as this work that may portray the life of a court patron. Literary gatherings in gardens became an enduring theme in Chinese visual culture.
Purchased in Peking by the dealer Otto Burchard, Peking, 1935 [1];
Transferred from Burchard to Wells Objects of Art, New York, probably 1935-ca. 1938 [2];
Unknown private collector, New Jersey, by 1939-April 19, 1963, as Verse Making at a Spring Picnic [3];
Purchased at the unknown collector’s sale, Chinese Art, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, April 19, 1963, lot 416, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1963.
NOTES:
[1] According to Laurence Sickman, Director and Curator of Asian Art, in a lecture given at the Nelson-Atkins on the occasion of the museum’s 50th anniversary in 1983 (“Night of Remembrances”), dealer Otto Burchard brought this painting to Sickman’s attention in Peking in 1935, during Sickman’s time there as a student and purchasing agent for the museum. Sickman requested he send the painting to Langdon Warner, Curator at Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum and Sickman’s mentor, so he could advise on whether Sickman should acquire it. The painting was sent, but Warner did not recommend its purchase and sent it on to C. Edward Wells of Wells Objects of Art in New York. Wells had previously served as managing director of Burchard’s New York gallery and continued to partner with him. A recording of Sickman’s lecture is in the Nelson-Atkins Archives, General Vertical File 01, folder 1.
[2] An unknown number of colophons that followed the paintings were removed from this handscroll, probably in the late 19th century. A Chinese-language note documenting their removal accompanied the painting when it arrived in the United States. Chi-chen Wang (1899-2001), Professor of Chinese Literature at Columbia University from 1929 to 1965, translated this note for Wells. A copy of Wang’s translation in the Nelson-Atkins curatorial file bears the handwritten notation ‘1933?’. Additionally, ‘Edward Wells – 1938’ is written on the back of a photograph of the painting in the same file. These details support Sickman’s recollection that the painting was with Wells in the 1930s (see note 4).
[3] In his Night of Remembrances lecture (see note 4), Sickman recalled running into Wells during a visit to New York in 1938/39. He inquired about the painting, and Wells informed him he had sold it to a private New Jersey collector. In 1948, Sickman was again in New York where he visited the dealer C. T. Loo. During this visit, Loo showed Sickman this painting, which he had on consignment from the New Jersey collector. Sickman was interested in purchasing it for the Nelson-Atkins, but delayed making an offer until he could return to Kansas City and consult the museum’s trustees. By the time he reached out to Loo again, the painting had been returned to the collector and Loo was unwilling to identify them. Finally, in 1963, Sickman was in New York again. While walking down the street past the Parke-Bernet auction house, he saw this painting on view in the window with a notice of its upcoming sale.
Hsieh, T’ang Wu-tao (1957), pl. 86-90.
Parke-Bernet Sale Catalog, no. 2188 (April 18-19, 1963), 87, no. 416.
Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America, vol. XCIII (New York: 1964), 79.
C.P. Fitzgerald and Norman Kotker, ed., The Horizon History of China (New York: 1969), 40-41.
Terukazu Akiyama, et. Al., ed. Chugoku bijutsu [Chinese art in Western collections] Kaiga [paintings]: v. I, ed. Kei Suzuki and Terukazu Akiyama. (Tokyo: 1972(or is it 1973?)), pl. 47- 49.
Kei Suzuki, Ri To, Ba En, Ge Kei [ Works of Li T’ang, ma Sung, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, including those of the Che Schol] Suiboku bijutsu taikei [ Complete collection of monochrome painting], vol. II( 1974), 156, pl. 10-11.
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), 55.
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):231-235, fig. 7.
Maggie Keswick, The Chinese Garden (New York: 1978), 42-43, no. 41.
Janet Gaylord Moore, The Eastern Gate (Cleveland: 1979), 29.
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), 66-69, no. 51.
Chūgoku no kaiga : Beikoku nidai bijutsukan shozō : tokubetsuten. (中国の絵画 : 米国二大美術館所蔵: 特别展= Chinese painting from two American museums : special exhibition.) Foreword by M.F> Wilson & S.E. Lee. Tokyo, National Museum, 1982. Catalog no. 43, pl. 43 (col. p 39, 96-97. Exhibition Oct. 5- Nov. 17, 1982.
Marc F. Wilson, “Identification of the subject of an Important scroll by Ma Yuan,” Museum, ed. Tokyo National Museum, No. 380. (Nov., 1982), 4-11, illus. 6.
Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988).187-188.
Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture society, vol. 1, no. 1 (Winter, 1990): 36, fig. 17.
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), 318.
“Handscroll Landscape Paintings…”, Oriental Art Magazine, vol. 39, no. 3 ( Autumn, 1993):20-27, fig. 4.
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), 344, fig. 189.
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), 340-355, no. 19.1. Details 19.2-19.10.
