# Flowers and Rocks

- Date: 1368–1644
- Medium: hanging scroll; color on silk
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Overall: 162.6 x 48.6 cm (64 x 19 1/8 in.)
- Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
- Credit line: Gift of Charles L. Freer
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1915.116)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/1915.116/1915.116_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)

Here, the painter uses delicate brushwork and vivid colors to depict an early summer scene of three kinds of flowers growing beside a garden rock: From top to bottom we see flowering pomegranate, then peonies, and lilies below. Like the peony, which conveys wishes for wealth and prosperity, the pomegranate flower, here in festive red color turning soon into fruit with many seeds, is associated with the wish for many sons. The lily, in Chinese "baihe," is a homophone with the pun "togetherness for a hundred years," expressing wishes for harmony and unity. The scroll would have made a suitable gift to married women.