# Tea Drinking Under the Wutong Tree

- By: Tang Yin (Chinese, 1470-1523)
- Date: Ming dynasty (1369–1644), 1509
- Medium: Handscroll; ink and slight color on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 23.4 × 332.8 cm (9 3/16 × 131 in.)
- Culture: China
- Credit line: Kate S. Buckingham Endowment Fund
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/40558)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d1e735ec-0dd2-1035-0486-7dba99e7e74e/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Generations of Chinese intellectuals and Buddhist monks honed the practice of tea tasting into a high art form. The "bamboo stove" —a carrying case that contained a ceramic kettle used for heating water—was central to the process of tea preparation. This ingenious device, fanned by a servant in the center of this painting, was the subject of a poem by Wu Kuan (1435-1504), a close friend of Tang Yin. In this composition, Wu appears on a low platform with a teapot and a scroll by his side. He shared the tea ceremony with a Buddhist monk, while another servant draws fresh water from a nearby stream.

Five years after Wu Kuan's death, Tang Yin executed this delicate vignette in the writer's memory. The first colophon was written by Zhu Yunming (1461-1527), a famous poet and calligrapher who exchanged tea-related verses with Mr. Wu. Such commemorative paintings provide poignant records of Chinese intellectual and cultured society.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0