Children at Play
Xia Kui (Chinese, active c. 1405–1445)
1508
- Medium
- hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting: 62.5 x 113.7 cm (24 5/8 x 44 3/4 in.); Overall with knobs: 214 x 137 cm (84 1/4 x 53 15/16 in.)
- Culture
- China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Chinese Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles L. Freer
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Sixteen children engage in scholarly, religious, and military activities, representing the popular “one hundred boys” theme expressing the wish for abundant, successful male offspring. Such paintings conveying auspicious wishes were often displayed during the New Year festival season.
Two older boys wear small crowns with red tassels. Another child with a mask holds a brush in one hand, a rice measure in the other. He stands on a low table imitating Kuixing, the God of Examinations and servant to the God of Literature.
