明　佚名　舊傳李公麟　蘭亭修禊圖　團扇|Gathering at the Orchid Pavilion

Unidentified artist|Li Gonglin

16th or 17th century · Fan mounted as an album leaf; ink and color on silk · Asian Art

This painting depicts the famous party held by Wang Xizhi at the Orchid Pavilion in 353 CE, when a group of scholars gathered to write poems and drink wine along the banks of a stream. Working within the intimate fan format, the artist could not spread out the stream as in a handscroll; instead, the men are clustered in the bottom half of the composition as the stream snakes around them. The host of the party sits in the pavilion at right, authoring the famous preface that would record the event for posterity.

Artist

Unidentified artist|Li Gonglin

Date

16th or 17th century

Medium

Fan mounted as an album leaf; ink and color on silk

Culture

China

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1913