明/清　佚名　劉松年　偽款　山水人物圖|Garden estate

Unidentified artist|Liu Songnian

17th century · Handscroll; ink and color on silk · Asian Art

A group of gentlemen ramble throughout a vast garden estate, enjoying waterside pavilions and the company of cranes. Many gardens in premodern China were small in scale, but painted representations of them can make them seem vast—a reflection of how their makers intended them to be experienced: as places where the spirit could run free. This handsome painting bears a fake signature of the twelfth-century painter Liu Songnian, but it was likely made in the seventeenth century to satisfy market demand for old paintings.

Artist

Unidentified artist|Liu Songnian

Date

17th century

Medium

Handscroll; ink and color on silk

Culture

China

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Gift of Horace Havemeyer, 1929