張騫図|The Chinese Explorer Zhang Qian on a Raft

Maejima Sōyū

mid-16th century · Hanging scroll; ink on paper · Asian Art

This bearded Chinese gentleman engaged in a most unlikely endeavor—white-water rafting—is Zhang Qian (Japanese: Chōken), a legendary explorer of the second century B.C. Zhang was immortalized in a Yuan-dynasty poem that tells of his riding a log raft to the source of the Yellow River, only to find himself floating in the Milky Way. This painting is one of the works most reliably attributed to Maejima Sōyū, a painter active in the Kantō region of eastern Japan.

Artist

Maejima Sōyū

Date

mid-16th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink on paper

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Purchase, Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation Gift, 2002