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Your galleryElephant, Horse, and Hare
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Compare how each animal sits in the water, from the elephant’s broad gray wash to the horse’s fine outline and the tiny hare.
Min Zhen painted this album in 1788 for a friend, who gave him a scholar’s stone in exchange. Here an elephant, a horse and a hare cross the water as if in a contest; the Cleveland Museum of Art suggests they may stand for the friend’s ties to Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism. Min was in Beijing between 1773 and 1784, and an elephant in the emperor’s zoo there may have been his model.
album leaf, ink on paper · Overall single page: 36.8 x 22.1 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · Chinese painting: Qing
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Elephant, Horse, and Hare
- Artist
- Min Zhen (Chinese, 1730–after 1788)
- Date
- 1788
- Medium
- album leaf, ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Overall single page: 36.8 x 22.1 cm (14 1/2 x 8 11/16 in.); Painting: 29 x 18.4 cm (11 7/16 x 7 1/4 in.)
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.