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One of Sixteen Album Leaves

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Watch how each bamboo leaf is a single stroke, broad at its base and sharp at its tip, laid over the soft gray wash of the rock.

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Hu Gongshou brushed bamboo in black ink across a pale gray rock, inside a circle painted on silk. The Art Institute dates the leaf 1882 and records it as one of sixteen album leaves. The Shanghai Museum calls Hu, a painter from Huating, now Songjiang in Shanghai, a pioneer of the Shanghai School who excelled at landscapes and flowers.

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Album leaf; ink on silk · Painting: 28.3 × 28.9 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Chinese painting: Qing

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Details and source

Museum title
One of Sixteen Album Leaves
Artist
Hu Gongshou 胡公壽 (Chinese, 1823-1886)
Date
Qing dynasty (1644–1911), dated 1882
Medium
Album leaf; ink on silk
Dimensions
Painting: 28.3 × 28.9 cm (11 1/8 × 11 3/8 in.); Album leaf: 30.5 × 36.2 cm (12 × 14 1/4 in.)
Credit line
Gift of Florence Ayscough and Harley Farnsworth MacNair
Image license
CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record
Art Institute of Chicago

Artist’s life 1823–1886

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.

One of Sixteen Album Leaves · Hu Gongshou, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), dated 1882
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One of Sixteen Album Leaves, Hu Gongshou

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