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The Gathering in the Apricot Garden

The Gathering in the Apricot Garden

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Cui Zizhong

This hanging scroll is by the seventeenth-century Chinese painter Cui Zizhong who was famous for his figure paintings. The ideal of an elegant gathering was usually reserved for a group of male scholars, as in the adjacent painting, but the two scholars in this work are accompanied by two servants cooking and a lady with her child. The bulging rock formation behind the figures is balanced by an exquisite Lake Tai rock in the foreground, resulting in a succinct yet weighty composition. As in the Confucius painting nearby, pale apricot petals gently dab the dry branches, a sign of simple elegance shy of full bloom.
Artist
Cui Zizhong
(Chinese, 1574 – 1644)
Title
The Gathering in the Apricot Garden
Date
1638
Period
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
Medium
Ink and color on silk mounted as hanging scroll
Dimensions
60 1/2 x 20 5/8 in. image
Credit
Anonymous loan
Accession No.
5.2002.15
Classification
Paintings
Geography
China

Related

12 September 2002, deposited on long term loan to Chazen Museum of Art by anonymous lender (Madison, WI)

  • Keane, Marc P. "The Japanese Tea Garden." Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2009. p. 16, no. 7
  • Hohenegger, Beatrice, ed. "Steeped in History: The Art of Tea." Los Angeles: Regents of the University of California, 2009 no. 1.5
  • Hiromitsu Ogawa. "The World of Chinese Landscape Painting." Taipei: Rock Publishing International, 2017. p. 101
  • White, Julia M. "Masterwoks of Chinese Painting: In Pursuit of Mists and Clouds." Berkeley, CA: University of California Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, 2002. unnumbered [cover; p. 6]
  • Ding Yunpeng, Wu Bin et al. "A Collection of Ming Dynasty Paintings Vol. 14 Part 2." Center for Research on Ancient Chinese Calligraphy and Painting, Zhejiang University Press (Ed.), 2024. no. 94

  • Echoing Overseas: Asian Artistic Exchange: Chazen Museum of Art, 8/8/2022–11/28/2022
  • Steeped in History, the Art of Tea: Fowler Museum at UCLA, 8/16/2009–11/29/2009
  • Masterworks of Chinese Paintings: In Pursuit of Mists and Clouds: Berkeley Art Museum, University of California-Berkeley, 3/13/2002–12/4/2005

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