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Look for the tiny guests seated in groups along the banks of the winding stream, then up to the waterfall that pours from the cliffs at upper right.
In AD 353 a group of poets met at the Orchid Pavilion in China for the spring purification festival, held on the third day of the third month by the lunar calendar. Wine cups were floated down a stream, and wherever a cup came to rest, a guest had to drink and compose a poem. Soga Shōhaku dated this ink painting to midwinter 1777. He painted the theme more than once: a temple in Kurume and Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria own other versions.
hanging scroll; ink on silk · Painting: 122.7 x 55.7 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Orchid Pavilion Gathering
- Artist
- Soga Shōhaku (Japanese, 1730–1781)
- Date
- 1777
- Medium
- hanging scroll; ink on silk
- Dimensions
- Painting: 122.7 x 55.7 cm (48 5/16 x 21 15/16 in.); Mounted: 197.4 x 58.8 cm (77 11/16 x 23 1/8 in.)
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Artist’s life 1730–1781
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.