{
"data": {
"id": 149590,
"accession_number": "1979.18",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "A Vignette of Life on the Frontier (\u585e\u4e0a\u91ce\u8da3\u5716), c. 1717\u201322. Jiao Bingzhen (Chinese, active c. 1670\u20131726), and Giuseppe Castiglione (Italian, 1688\u20131766). Folding fan; ink and color on paper; painting: 19 x 55 cm (7 1/2 x 21 5/8 in.); overall with sticks: 33 x 55 cm (13 x 21 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Eleanor and Morris Everett, 1979.18",
"current_location": null,
"title": "A Vignette of Life on the Frontier",
"title_in_original_language": "\u585e\u4e0a\u91ce\u8da3\u5716",
"creation_date": "c. 1717\u201322",
"creation_date_earliest": 1717,
"creation_date_latest": 1722,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911), Kangxi period (1662-1722)"
],
"technique": "Folding fan; ink and color on paper",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Chinese Art",
"collection": "China - Qing Dynasty",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Painting: 19 x 55 cm (7 1/2 x 21 5/8 in.); Overall with sticks: 33 x 55 cm (13 x 21 5/8 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall with sticks": {
"height": 0.33,
"width": 0.55
},
"painting": {
"height": 0.19,
"width": 0.55
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "\u585e\u4e0a\u91ce\u8da3\u5716\u3002\u5949\u52c5\u5beb\u771f\u3002\u81e3\u7126\u79c9\u8c9e\u90de\u4e16\u5be7\u5408\u7b46\u606d\u7e6a\u3002[\u5370]\u79c9\u8c9e; \u4e16\u5be7.",
"inscription_translation": "Artists' inscription, signatures, and 2 seals (1 of each artist): \n\nA vignette of life on the frontier. On Your Majesty\u2019s order, we the servitors Jiao Bingzhen and Lang Shining jointly depicted the scene. [seals] Bingzhen; Shining.",
"inscription_remark": "The inscription is informative in at least two respects. First, it identifies the fan painting as a pictorial record of a scene that the Kangxi Emperor had witnessed during a journey to the frontier, and it records that he commanded two of his court painters, a Chinese and a Westerner, to represent the scene accurately. Second, the manner in which the signatures were placed (most likely by Jiao Bingzhen) signals a clear difference in rank between the two artists. Jiao Bingzhen comes first followed by Lang Shining, the Chinese name for the younger artist, Giuseppe Castiglione.",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"inscription": "2 seals of the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-95). 12 poems by the Qianlong emperor and inscribed in clerical script by Wang Youdun \u6c6a\u7531\u6566 (1692-1758).",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"inscription": "1 poem incised on the outer ribs of the fan, front and back by Dong Bangda \u8463\u90a6\u9054 (1699\u20131769).",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": "Dong's inscription quotes in part a poem by the Tang poet Li Bai \u674e\u767d (701-762). It was done at the imperial command at Taoyuan Shuwo (\u8a0e\u539f\u66f8\u5c4b or Taoyuan Library) at the Changchun Garden \u66a2\u6625\u5712.",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 304412,
"title": "Year in Review: 1979",
"description": "Year in Review: 1979. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 13-March 9, 1980).",
"opening_date": "1980-02-13T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 304517,
"title": "Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting",
"description": "Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 11-March 29, 1981); Tokyo National Museum (October 4-November 17, 1982).",
"opening_date": "1981-02-11T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 309887,
"title": "The Twain Shall Meet",
"description": "The Twain Shall Meet. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 30, 1985-January 5, 1986).",
"opening_date": "1985-10-30T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 311482,
"title": "Fans: East and West",
"description": "Fans: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 15, 1992-March 7, 1993).",
"opening_date": "1992-12-15T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 122). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 23-October 27, 2003).",
"opening_date": "2003-07-23T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Qing imperial collection (seals of the Qianlong Emperor, r. 1736\u20131795)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(David Newman [1936\u20132012], London, England, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "?\u20131979",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1979\u2013",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "One horseshoe is visible beneath the uplifted hoof.",
"description": "Jiao Bingzhen, a court painter largely active during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, was the senior artist on this fan. Jiao painted the Manchu horse trainer and the setting into which the horse was inserted by Giuseppe Castiglione. Each artist was bonded to his own artistic tradition, while flexibly and harmoniously accommodating the others\u2019 style.
Jiao\u2019s brushwork displays rigor and control, particularly in the twisting and turning trunk of the willow. The treatment of the figure and his clothes is an exercise in linearity. The horse trainer\u2019s gesture and posture closely adhere to the known repertoire of the Chinese figural tradition, but the specificity supplies a sense of documentary reportage of life on the frontier. His shaved forehead and white temples identify him as a Manchu. The thick fabric of his garments was defined in a different sort of brush line than Jiao typically used for Chinese scholars or travelers.
Jesuit priest Castiglione, a newcomer to China at the time this was painted, brought a sense of Western realism to the horse. Poised at a slight angle, the horse is alert, its eye gleaming. Its contours suggest the bulk of its anatomy with skilled but not overpowering modelling, and careful and subtly wrought attention to detail, such as fluttering strand of mane.
Because of his ability to combine traditional Chinese painting techniques with Western methods of perspective and chiaroscuro, Castiglione went on to be the most favored and honored of the missionary artists who served the early Qing emperors. Throughout his career, in addition to imperial demands for portraits and records of court events, Castiglione continued to paint favored imperial horses. These animal subjects reflect the desire of Kangxi and his successors to celebrate their nomadic origins and to keep alive the martial prowess of the Manchu warriors in their new and sedentary world of conquered China.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60473756"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1979.18-a-vignette-of-life-o"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Lee, Sherman E. \"The Year in Review for 1979.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 3 (1980): 58-99.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. no. 116, p. 86; Mentioned: p. 62",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25159667"
},
{
"citation": "Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1980.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. no. 261, pp. 353-354",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Suzuki, Kei \u9234\u6728\u656c. Chu\u0304goku kaiga so\u0304go\u0304 zuroku [\u4e2d\u570b\u7e6a\u756b\u7e3d\u5408\u5716\u9304= Comprehensive Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Paintings], \u7b2c1\u5377. \u30a2\u30e1\u30ea\u30ab\u00b7\u30ab\u30ca\u30c0\u7bc7[= vol. 1 American and Canadian collections]. To\u0304kyo\u0304: To\u0304kyo\u0304 Daigaku Shuppankai, 1982.",
"page_number": "#A22-221",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Chung, Anita. Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads: July 27, 2013-January 26, 2014, the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 25, fig. 7",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Chou, Ju-hsi and Anita Chung. Silent poetry: Chinese paintings from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: pp. 431-433",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1979.18",
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"creditline": "Gift of Eleanor and Morris Everett",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 149590,
"creators": [
{
"id": 31379,
"description": "Jiao Bingzhen (Chinese, active c. 1670\u20131726)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Court painter largely active during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor. He was one of the early Chinese painters to use Western techniques.",
"name_in_original_language": "\u7126\u79c9\u771f",
"use_in_caption": true,
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"weight": 1
},
{
"id": 27841,
"description": "Giuseppe Castiglione (Italian, 1688\u20131766)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": "and",
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Italian Jesuit missionary and painter, who worked in China. He served as an artist at the imperial court of three emperors: the Kangzi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong emperors. He painted in a style that is a fusion of European and Chinese traditions.",
"name_in_original_language": "\u90ce\u4e16\u5be7",
"birth_year": "1688",
"death_year": "1766",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 2
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1979-05-07T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1717,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1717\u201322",
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"recently_acquired": false,
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"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Training a Horse on the Northern Frontier",
"A Vignette of Life on the Frontier \u585e\u4e0a\u91ce\u8da3\u5716"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-03-27 00:02:41.895000"
}
}