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Two riders searching for plum blossoms
Formerly attributed to Xia Gui 夏珪 (active ca. 1195-1230)
16th century
- Medium
- Hanging scroll mounted on panel; ink and color on silk
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (image): 136.7 x 71.3 cm (53 13/16 x 28 1/16 in)
- Culture
- Chinese
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), 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 Smithsonian Institution
About this work
This chilly winter scene focuses on a pair of riders and their servants traveling up a mountain trail, where they have come upon a blossoming plum tree. A huge, almost cylindrical rock leans above them, while the looming spires of distant snow-covered peaks project above the group of large buildings, perhaps a temple complex, that might have been their starting place. In paintings such as this, it is difficult to know if the travelers have set out intentionally to find plum blossoms or have simply encountered them along the road.
