{
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"accession_number": "1985.366",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Plum Blossoms (\u6885\u82b1), probably 1739. Wang Shishen (Chinese, 1686\u20131759). Hanging scroll; ink on paper; painting: 144.4 x 75.7 cm (56 7/8 x 29 13/16 in.); overall: 238 x 89.1 cm (93 11/16 x 35 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith, 1985.366",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Plum Blossoms",
"title_in_original_language": "\u6885\u82b1",
"creation_date": "probably 1739",
"creation_date_earliest": 1739,
"creation_date_latest": 1739,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)"
],
"technique": "Hanging scroll; ink on paper",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Chinese Art",
"collection": "ASIAN - Hanging scroll",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Painting: 144.4 x 75.7 cm (56 7/8 x 29 13/16 in.); Overall: 238 x 89.1 cm (93 11/16 x 35 1/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 2.38,
"height_inch": 93,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.6875,
"width": 0.891,
"width_inch": 35,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0625
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"painting": {
"height": 1.444,
"height_inch": 56,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"width": 0.757,
"width_inch": 29,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.8125
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"height": 2.38,
"height_inch": 93,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.6875,
"width": 1.002,
"width_inch": 39,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.4375
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"state_of_the_work": null,
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"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Artist's Poem 1.\nLooking for plum blossoms with friends, enjoying the fresh clear day, \nMy black shoes and cotton socks feel light.\nWith fine groves in front of the ancient temple door,\nI walk to and fro, as in a painting.",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"inscription": "Artist's Poem 2. \nOne clear chime breaks the silence in the Mountains, \nAll the heroes of the Six Dynasties, after a thousand years, are forgotten.\nEnjoy the idle days under a Buddhist window, \nPlum blossoms monopolize the east wind with their branches.",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"inscription": "Artist's Poem 3.\nNext to the little stone bridge is a path leading west, \nWherever you walk, your staff will touch some dike of the Sui Dynasty. \nTourists love only the Ch'i-ling temple, \nSo sea-gulls take to startled flight and horses neigh.",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"inscription": "Artist's Poem 4. \nAfter ten years I revisited the I-su An,\nThe old plums are no longer on the southeast side of the garden. \nI pass a peaceful night, though unable to offer fragrant flowers, \nAs bright moonlight cheerlessly falls upon the Buddhist shrine.",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"inscription": "Artist's inscription, signature, and 3 seals:\n\nFour poems composed on our way from the Iron Buddha Temple to the I-su An Retreat at P'ing-shan, while looking for plum blossoms with friends. Ch'ao-lin, Wang Shih-shen painted [this]. [2 seals] Wang Shih-sheng; Chin-jen fu. [seal, lower right corner] Ch'ao-lin.",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 5
},
{
"inscription": "3 colophons, 3 additional inscriptions, and 23 additional seals: \n\n1 inscription, dated 1739, and 2 seals of Mao Yin-k'uei (17th\u201318th c.); 1 colophon and 3 seals of Lu K'uei-hs\u00fcn (17th\u201318th c.); 1 colophon and 3 seals of Chu Chin (1686\u20131769); 1 colophon and 4 seals of Y\u00fc Pi-k'uei (17th\u201318th c.); 1 inscription and 2 seals of Yao Shih-y\u00fc (1695\u20131749); 1 inscription and 3 seals of ? Shu-teh; 1 seal of Shen Wu (dates unknown); 1 seal of Lou Ts'un (19th c.); 2 seals of Cheng Qi \u7a0b\u7426 (1911\u20131988); 2 unidentified.",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": 6
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 310240,
"title": "A Private World: Japanese and Chinese Art from the Kelvin Smith Collection",
"description": "A Private World: Japanese and Chinese Art from the Kelvin Smith Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 14-November 13, 1988).",
"opening_date": "1988-09-14T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 521183,
"title": "When Salt was Gold: Yangzhou, City of Riches and Art",
"description": "When Salt was Gold: Yangzhou, City of Riches and Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 12-November 5, 2023).",
"opening_date": "2023-05-12T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Yo\u0304shu\u0304 Hakkai [\u63da\u5dde\u516b\u602a = The Eight masters of Yangzhou]. Osaka Municipal Museum, Osaka, Japan (April 26-May 25, 1969).",
"opening_date": "1969-04-26T05:00:00Z"
},
{
"description": "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).",
"opening_date": "1980-11-06T05:00:00Z"
},
{
"description": "Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 119). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 12-July 16, 2003).",
"opening_date": "2003-03-12T05:00:00Z"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "The Kelvin Smith Collection, Cleveland, OH, given by Mrs. Kelvin [Eleanor Armstrong] Smith [1899\u20131998] to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?\u20131985",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1985\u2013",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
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"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [
"208.1979",
"108.1981"
],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "A native of Anhui province, Wang Shishen was a professional painter who specialized in plum blossoms. He moved to Yangzhou in the late 1720s to seek patrons. Here, the daring composition of a flowering plum branch is balanced through the addition of four poems. Wang\u2019s poems evoke nostalgia for the forgotten Six Dynasties period and the glorious Sui dynasty, during which the Grand Canal was built while Yangzhou was the southern capital of the empire. Other inscriptions in the upper part of the painting allude to the fact that Wang had developed blindness in one eye, probably at the time he conceived this painting.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60475662"
],
"internet_archive": [
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"citations": [
{
"citation": "O\u0304saka Shiritsu Bijutsukan [\u5927\u962a\u5e02\u7acb\u7f8e\u8853\u9928 = Osaka Municipal Museum]. Yo\u0304shu\u0304 Hakkai [\u63da\u5dde\u516b\u602a = The Eight masters of Yangzhou]. O\u0304saka: publisher not identified, 1969.",
"page_number": "p. 38",
"url": ""
},
{
"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": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 267, pp. 365\u2013366",
"url": ""
}
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