明/清　佚名　仿夏珪　捕魚圖　團扇|River Landscape with Boatmen

Art Historical Context

This delicate fan painting, mounted as an album leaf, captures a tranquil river landscape with boatmen navigating misty. Created in ink on silk during China’s Ming dynasty, it is a deliberate imitation of the renowned Southern Song master Xia Gui, whose spare yet evocative style defined the Ma-Xia school of landscape painting. The small circular format—typical of handheld fans—invites intimate viewing, transforming a functional object into a portable world of mist, mountains, and human activity. By the Ming period, artists frequently looked back to Song dynasty models for inspiration, copying and reinterpreting earlier masters to demonstrate both technical skill and cultural reverence. Here, the unidentified painter employs Xia Gui’s characteristic “one-corner” composition and fluid ink washes to suggest vast space within a confined circle. The scene of fishermen and travelers on the water reflects enduring Chinese ideals of harmony between humans and nature. Such fan paintings were treasured not only for their beauty but also for their role in scholarly and courtly life, where they served as both personal accessories and subtle expressions of refined taste. Today, this work in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection offers a vivid glimpse into centuries of artistic dialogue across dynasties.