Album leaf, c. 1875
Qian Hui'anexpand_more
Ink and color on paperexpand_more
The Friends of Bruce Dayton Art Acquisition Fundexpand_more 2013.13.2
Not on Viewexpand_more
More illustrational than the other leaves, this painting compensates for its less adventurous composition with a truly strange image. A man and a woman stand beside a stove or cauldron, from which they have just removed the lid; the lid sits on the ground while flames still shoot from the inside of the stove. Two naked male children, unperturbed by the flames, look out. The man observes them with solicitude, while the woman takes one of the children by the hands, as if to draw him gently out of the cauldron. Judging by the eight trigrams on the cauldron lid, the Daoist accoutrements on the nearby table, and the way the adults are dressed in leaves and animal skins, the scene is a mythological one - the creation of humankind by Fuxi and Nüwa. The baby humans have just been smelted or baked into existence. It is hard, though, not to see in the painting the depiction of an altogether more ordinary kind of scene, that of a young family. Psychologically, the combination of the tenderness with which the parents regard their newly minted progeny and the drama of the flames that surround the newborns successively conveys the intensity of the desire for male children, and the happy event of male twins.
Details
- Title
- Album leaf
- Artist Life
- 1833 - 1911
- Role
- Artist
- Accession Number
- 2013.13.2
- Curator Approved
This record has been reviewed by our curatorial staff but may be incomplete. These records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@artsmia.org.
Does something look wrong with this image? Let us know
Zoom in on the left to the detail you'd like to save. Click 'Save detail' and wait until the image updates. Right click the image to 'save image as' or copy link, or click the image to open in a new tab.