清 任頤 石上讀書 扇面|Scholar on a rock
ca. 1880
Medium
Folding fan mounted as an album leaf; ink and color on paper
Dimensions
Image: 7 1/2 x 21 3/16 in. (19.1 x 53.8 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Culture & Period
China · Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
Department
Asian Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, in memory of La Ferne Hatfield Ellsworth, 1986
Accession Number
1986.267.49
Tags
Art Historical Context
Ren Yi (1840–1896), also known as Ren Bonian, was one of the most celebrated painters of the late Qing dynasty and a leading figure in the Shanghai School Active in the bustling treaty port of Shanghai around 0, he blended traditional Chinese brushwork lively, accessible subjects that appealed to both scholars and. “Scholar on a,” originally painted on a folding, captures this moment of cultural transition when personal objects became vehicles for artistic expression. The subject—a solitary figure absorbed in reading atop a weathered stone—evokes the enduring Chinese ideal of the scholar-recl...