Brush Holder with Figures in Landscape and Poetic Inscription by Wang Meilin from Jiading

1800s

Wang Meilin

Wang Meilin (Chinese, active c. 1825)

Chinese Art

Brush Holder with Figures in Landscape and Poetic Inscription by Wang Meilin from Jiading, 1800s. Wang Meilin (Chinese, active c. 1825). Carved bamboo; overall: 16 x 12.4 cm (6 5/16 x 4 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1988.75

Original Source

Maker/Artist: Wang Meilin
Classification: Wood
Formatted Medium: carved bamboo
Medium: carved, bamboo
Dimensions: Overall: 16 x 12.4 cm (6 5/16 x 4 7/8 in.)
Inscribed: Inscription: A ten-acre [home], a five-acre yard with a water pool, and a thousand bamboos. Don’t say the field is narrow, or the location remote. It is enough to accommodate the knee and rest the shoulder. It has a hall and a yard, a bridge and a boat. It has books and wine, songs and string [instruments]. An old man in the midst of it, his white beard flowing. [He] is moderate and satisfied, has no demands and needs. Like a bird he chooses a branch, builds a nest, and rests at ease. Like a fish in a swamp, that does not know how wide the ocean is. . . . All I like, lies before me. I drink a cup of wine from time to time, recite a [poem], wife and children play, chicken and dogs are at leisure, and I will grow old here. Remark: Inscribed by Wang Meilin
Departments: Chinese Art
Accession Number: 1988.75
Credit Line: John L. Severance Fund
Exhibitions: The Year in Review for 1988, Scholar's Studio, Power and Possession: Chinese Calligraphy and Inscribed Objects – Chinese Gallery Rotation 240a, 241c
Rights Statement: CC0
Museum Location: 240B Chinese Decorative Arts