id: 149684 accession number: 1979.72 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1979.72 updated: 2023-01-24 21:45:41.306000 The Ninth Day Literary Gathering at Xing’an, 1743. Fang Shishu (Chinese, 1693–1751), and Ye Fanglin (Chinese, late 1600s-mid-1700s). Handscroll, ink and color on silk; image: 32.4 x 201.2 cm (12 3/4 x 79 3/16 in.); overall: 33.5 x 893 cm (13 3/16 x 351 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 1979.72 title: The Ninth Day Literary Gathering at Xing’an title in original language: 九日行庵文讌圖 series: series in original language: creation date: 1743 creation date earliest: 1743 creation date latest: 1743 current location: creditline: Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund copyright: --- culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911) technique: handscroll, ink and color on silk department: Chinese Art collection: ASIAN - Handscroll type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Fang Shishu (Chinese, 1693–1751) - artist * Ye Fanglin (Chinese, late 1600s-mid-1700s) - artist --- measurements: Image: 32.4 x 201.2 cm (12 3/4 x 79 3/16 in.); Overall: 33.5 x 893 cm (13 3/16 x 351 9/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Fang Shishu's seal at beginning of painting: Ou ran shi de 偶然拾得. Ye Fanglin's seal at end of painting: Fanglin 芳林. Frontispiece title dated 1743 and 3 seals of Chen Bangyan 陳邦彦 (1678-1752). translation: remark: inscription: 行庵在揚州北郭天寧寺西隅，馬君嶰谷半槎兄弟購僧房隙地所築，以為游息之處也。寺為晉謝太傅別墅。西隅饒古木，䨴鬱陰森，入林最僻，不知其近郛郭。庵居其中，無斲礱髤采之飾，惟軒庭多得清蔭，來憩者每流連而不能去。乾隆癸亥九日，積雨既收，風日清美，遂約同人，咸集於斯，中縣［懸］仇英白描陶靖節像，采黃花，酌白醪為供，乃以人世難逢開口笑，菊花雖插滿頭歸分韻賦詩。陶陶衎衎，觴詠竟日。既逾月，吳中寫真葉君敬［震］初適來，群貌小像，合為一卷，方君環山補景，命曰九日行庵文讌圖。裝池成，將各書所作於後，而囑鶚為之記。記按圖中共坐短榻者二人：右箕踞者，為武陵胡復齋先生期恆；左抱膝者，為天門唐南軒先生建中也。坐繩床者二人：中手牋者，歙方環山士庶；左仰首如欲語者，江都閔玉井華也。一人坐藤塾捻髭者，鄞全謝山祖望也。一人倚石坐若凝思者，臨潼張漁川四科也。樹下二人：離立把菊者，錢唐厲樊榭鶚；袖手者，錢唐陳竹町章也。一人憑石床坐撫琴者，江都程香溪先生夢星也。聽者三人：一人垂袖立者，祁門馬半查曰璐；二人坐瓷塾，左倚樹、右跂腳者，歙方西疇士疌 、汪恬齋玉樞也。二人對坐展卷者，左祁門馬嶰谷曰琯，右吳江王梅沂藻也。一人觀者，負手立於右，江都陸南圻鐘輝也。從後相倚觀者一人，歙洪曲溪振珂也。童子種菊者三人：樹間侍立者一人，撰杖、執卷者各一人。其植有蕉、有竹，又有雜樹，作丹黃青碧之色，紀時也。夫重九佳名，舉俗所重，而高常侍歎獨坐而搔首，陸天隨感登高以剫門，無其時地與人耳。今吾儕幸生太平，遇勝地，又皆素心有文之侶，固人世不可多得之會；而此十六人者，或土斷，或客游，聚散不常。異日者，歲月遷流，撫節物以有懷，一披此圖，悅如晤對。將來覽者，或亦不異此意乎。甲子夏五十有四日厲鴞記並書。 translation: remark: inscription: 揚州為江北大都會，居民連甍接楹，笙歌輿從，竟日喧聚，其於淸歌雅集，葢罕矣。城北天寧寺，為晉謝公駐節時所游息，其中有行庵，吾友馬君嶰谷、半查兄弟之小築也。地不踰五畝，而老樹古藤，森蔚相望，皆千百年物，間以修竹，春鳥秋蟲，更唱迭和，其間曲廊高榭，位置閑適。出門未數百步，即黃塵濁流極目，令人作惡。而此中獨蕭然有人外之思。乾隆八年九日，嶰谷兄弟招集同社一十四人祀陶公，出所藏仇實父白描像懸於閣上，各賦一詩。予方留滯西泠，未得預也。又踰旬而予至，諸君方擬繪圖記事，嶰谷曰：是不可無君。乃以展日更舉，令予得陪卷軸之末；而洪君曲溪，兩度皆以病失約，然故吟社中人也，亦補入焉。予太息謂諸君曰：謝公之風流，千古如在；然其游息於斯也，則與東山賓從之樂稍不同矣。公之為是行也，蓋以符氏之亂，思北定中原也。而其時公巳困於讒口，不自安於朝；雖在河朔極有可乘之會，而神明內索，徘徊不克自前。老師左次，竟無尺寸之功，坐失事幾。吾常過邵伯之埭，吊法雲之荒祠，未嘗不喟然累啼，以為明德之衰也。至若九日嘉名，陶公高格，固在羲皇懷葛之間；然而讀其 止酒之詩，蒼梧漢水之感，以瘦詞寄其孤憤則夫黃花白酒，蓋亦不得巳而漫與焉者。今吾輩生逢太平之日，書淫墨癖，是處留連，胸次中了無一事，為江湖之幸民，論人雖甚媿，論其時與地，則不可不私相慶也。諸君曰：善。圖之詳巳見於厲君樊榭記中。予之許為嶰谷兄弟序斯圖也，三年於茲；今夏重披圖捉筆，而唐丈南軒，巳化為異物矣。對酒當歌，人生幾何，願與諸君並日相遇從焉。丙寅夏杪孤山社小泉翁全祖望序。 translation: remark: inscription: 6 additional colophons and 15 additional seals: 1 colophon, dated 1746, and 1 seal of Huang Zhijun 黃之雋 (1668-after 1746); 1 colophon and 2 seals of Zha Xiang 查祥 (1718 jinshi); 1 colophon, dated 1746, and 3 seals of Zhang Siwen 張思問; 1 colophon, dated 1748, and 4 seals of Shao Dong 卲東 (1721 jinshi); 1 colophon, dated 1753, and 2 seals of Fang Shiju 方世舉 (signing as Fang Funan 方扶南); 1 colophon, dated 1808, of Ruan Yuan 阮元 (1764–1849); 3 seals unidentified. translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1979 opening date: 1980-02-20T05:00:00 Year in Review: 1979. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 20-March 9, 1980). title: Portraiture: The Image of the Individual opening date: 1983-11-22T05:00:00 Portraiture: The Image of the Individual. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 22, 1983-January 22, 1984). title: Scholar's Studio opening date: 1989-09-26T04:00:00 Scholar's Studio. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 26-December 31, 1989). title: Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 1998-02-21T00:00:00 Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art. Nara National Museum (organizer) (February 21-March 29, 1998); Suntory Museum of Art (April 28-June 21, 1998). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (November 7, 1980-January 4, 1981); The Cleveland Museum of Art (February 10-March 29, 1981); Tokyo National Museum (October 4-November 17, 1982). * Portraiture: The Image of the Individual. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1983). * The Elegant Brush: Chinese Painting under the Ch'ien-lung. Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ (August 25-October 6, 1985); Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA (February 8-March 23, 1986); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (May 13-August 13, 1986). * The Eccentric Painters of Yangzhou. China Institute in America, New York, NY (October 20-December 15, 1990). * Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 242). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 21, 2013-July 28, 2014). --- PROVENANCE Ma Yueguan 馬曰琯 [1688–1755] and Ma Yuelu 馬曰璐 [1697–after 1766], Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, China date: 1743-after 1766 footnotes: *
Brothers Ma Yueguan and Ma Yuelu, who hosted the Ninth Day Literary Gathering at their Xing’an garden, were wealthy salt merchants, poets, collectors, and patrons of the arts.
citations: Chen Kuilin 陳夔麟 [1855–after 1915] date: footnotes: citations: (Wan-go Weng 翁萬戈 [1918-2020], Lyme, NH, sold sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) date: ?-1979 footnotes: *
Inspired in part by this painting, Wan-go Weng painted a handscroll to commemorate an “elegant gathering” of his own that took place in April 1985, when six of the most respected historians of Chinese painting and calligraphy met to view the Weng collection. Elegant Gathering at the Laixi Residence 萊溪雅集圖卷 is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (accession number 2018.2899).
citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1979- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: The two hosts and their fourteen guests were all officials, scholars, poets, painters, and salt merchants. digital description: wall description: This group portrait and commemorative work keeps alive the memory of a literary gathering held in 1743 at a private garden in Yangzhou.

Refined merchants and art patrons, the brothers Ma Yueguan and Ma Yuelu constructed a private garden in Yangzhou as a place of leisure. It was named Temporary Retreat (Xing'an). In 1743, on the 9th day of the 9th month (the Chongyang Festival), they invited members of a poetry club to gather at the garden. There, a portrait of the ancient poet Tao Qian by Qiu Ying was hung, yellow chrysanthemums were picked, and white wine offered. Improvising on the rhythms of a Du Fu poem, they composed poetry, drinking and humming the whole day.

This painting was done a month after the event by the portraitist Ye Fanglin and landscape artist Fang Shishu (one of the guests of the gathering). Upon completion, the participants wrote down individual compositions to accompany the painting. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Li, Dou 李斗, Wang Beiping 汪北平, and Tu Yugong 涂雨公. Yangzhou hua fang lu 揚州畫舫錄. Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju chu ban; Xin hua shu dian Beijing fa xing suo fa xing, 1960. (Preface dated 1795). page number: Mentioned: IV, 6(b) url: Chen, Kuilin 陳夔麟. Bao yu ge shu hua lu 寶迂閣書畫錄 . Shanghai: [publisher not identified], 1915. (Preface dated 1855). page number: Mentioned: III, 57(b)-61(b) url: Ferguson, John C 福開森. Li dai zhu lu hua mu 歷代著錄畵目. Nanjing: Chin-ling University, Zhong guo wen hua yan jiu suo 金陵大學中國文化硏究所, 1934. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: I, supp., p. 9(b) url: Fukunaga, Takehiko 福永武彥, and Howard L. Rogers. Kinnō, Bunjinga suihen. chiyūgo (9) 金農, 文人画粋編. 中国篇 9. Tōkyō: Chūōkoronsha, 1976. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 176-78, pl. 82, fig. 28 url: 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. 115, p. 86; Mentioned: p. 62 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25159667 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. 275, pp. 372-376 url: Chou, Ju-hsi, and Claudia Brown. The Elegant Brush: Chinese Painting Under the Qianlong Emperor, 1735-1795. Phoenix, AZ: Phoenix Art Museum, 1985. page number: Reproduced: fig. 34, p. 109 url: Graham, Patricia J. "Lifestyles of Scholar-Painters in Edo Japan." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 7 (1990): 262-83. page number: Reproduced: p. 265; Mentioned: p. 264-65, 282 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161293 Giacalone, Vito, and Ginger Cheng-chi Hsü. The Eccentric Painters of Yangzhou. New York City: China House Gallery, China Institute in America, 1990. page number: Reproduced: cat. no. 1, p. 31 url: Harrist, Robert E., and Gonglin Li. Painting and Private Life in Eleventh-Century China: Mountain Villa by Li Gonglin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. page number: Reproduced: figure 40 url: Tōyō kaiga no seika: tokubetsuten: Kurīvurando Bijutsukan no korekushon kara [東洋絵画の精華 : 特别展 : クリーヴラント美術館のコレクションから = Highlights of Asian painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art]. Nara, Japan: Nara National Museum, 1998. page number: Reproduced: cat. no. 46, p. 74 url: Thorp, Robert L., and Richard Ellis Vinograd. Chinese Art & Culture. New York: Abrams, 2001. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 345, 9-29 url: Nelson, Susan E. "Revisiting the Eastern fence: Tao Qian's chrysanthemums." Art Bulletin, September 2001, Vol. 83, Issue 3, pp. 437-460. page number: Reproduced: p. 445 url: Pirazzoli-tʼSerstevens, Michèle, and Anne Kerlan-Stephens. Autour des collections d'art en Chine au XVIIIe siècle. Genève: Librairie Droz, 2008. page number: pg. 146, fig. 4 url: Chiem, Kristen. "Picturing Common Ground: Painting and Poetic Exchange Beyond Eighteenth-Century Yangzhou." Artibus Asiae 73, no. 1 (2013): 181-218. page number: Reproduced: pp. 202, 203, fig. 13 url: https://www-jstor-org.ingallslibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/24240771 Finnane, Antonia. Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550-1850. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: fig. 22, p. 254 url: 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. 447-453 url: 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: Mentioned: pp. 452-453 url: 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: Mentioned: p. 453 url: 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: Mentioned: pp. 447-453 url: Zhang, Jinhua, and Don Cohn. The Classical Chinese Furniture of Weiyang: Literati Culture and Craftsmanship in the Yangzhou Region During the Ming and Qing Dynasties. London: Rasika/Sylph Editions, 2016. page number: Reproduced: pp. 36-37, fig. 11 url: Vinograd, Richard Ellis. Facing China: Truth and Memory in Portraiture. London: Reaktion Books, 2022. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 176-177, fig. 84 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1979.72/1979.72_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1979.72/1979.72_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1979.72/1979.72_full.tif