# Plum Blossoms

- By: Wang Shishen (Chinese, 1686–1759)
- Date: probably 1739
- Medium: Hanging scroll; ink on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 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.)
- Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
- Credit line: The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1985.366)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1985.366/1985.366_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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’s 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.