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Weizheng Riding on an Ox
Yamaguchi Sekkei (Japanese, 1644–1732)
inscription by Nanyuan Xingpai (Chinese, 1631–1692)
1687
- Medium
- hanging scroll; ink on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting: 116.5 x 39 cm (45 7/8 x 15 3/8 in.); Mounted: 201.3 x 55.9 cm (79 1/4 x 22 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Nisaburo Mizutani
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The inscription at the top of this painting was brushed by Ōbaku school monk Nanyuan Xingpai (Japanese: Nangen Shōha), a Chinese Buddhist monk who emigrated to Japan in 1654, while the painting was done in ink by Yamaguchi Sekkei, a Japanese painter active in Kyoto who was known for his Buddhist subjects, many of which remain in temples today. The figure here reads a text while riding backward upon a water buffalo. Sekkei's painting depicts the Chinese monk Weizheng (986–1049), also known as "Zheng of the Yellow Ox" after his favored mount. Nanyuan's inscription is a poem about the monk.
