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Your galleryDrunken fisherman by a reed bank
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Find the pale moon in the mist, then drop down to the boat moored among the reeds, its matting awning hiding the sleeper and a straw bundle hanging on the pole.
A fisherman, the Met explains, stood for the scholar in retirement, and this one has drunk himself into a deep sleep under the matting of his boat, forgetting the cares of the world. Tang Yin’s poem at the upper right says he has tied up his little boat in the reeds, that by midnight the moon has climbed to the tip of his pole, and that in the morning he rises to find frost marked with the shadow of his raincoat.
Hanging scroll; ink on paper · Image: 28 7/16 x 14 9/16 in. (72.2 x 37 cm · The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Chinese painting: Ming
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Drunken fisherman by a reed bank
- Artist
- Tang Yin (Chinese, 1470–1524)
- Date
- early 16th century
- Medium
- Hanging scroll; ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 28 7/16 x 14 9/16 in. (72.2 x 37 cm) Overall with mounting: 64 3/4 x 21 in. (164.5 x 53.3 cm) Overall with knobs: 64 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. (164.5 x 60.3 cm)
- Credit line
- Bequest of John M. Crawford Jr., 1988
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Artist’s life 1470–1523
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.