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Autumn foliage and birds
Formerly attributed to Cui Bai (active mid- to late 11th century)
14th-15th century
- Medium
- Ink and color on silk
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (image): 82.2 × 49.8 cm (32 3/8 × 19 5/8 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
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
A magpie is perched atop a tree to which a few sparse autumn leaves still cling. Two songbirds sit on the thorns below. The composition of this unsigned painting is based on Song dynasty (906-1279) conventions, but on the whole it is too open and loosely organized to be an exact copy. The relatively tight, descriptive brushwork dates stylistically to the Yuan (1279-1368) or early Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
