Ancestral Portrait, Male / Artist Unknown, China
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About this Item
Record Details
- Accession Number
- 2002/1.218.1
- Title
- Ancestral Portrait, Male
- Artist
- Artist Unknown, China
- Artist Nationality
- Chinese
- Medium and Support
- ink, color and gold on paper
- Object Creation Date
- circa 1875-1920
- Object Creation Place
- Asia (continent)
- China (nation)
- Creation Place 1
- Asia (continent)
- Creation Place 2
- China (nation)
- Dimensions
- 117.3 cm x 56.4 cm (46 3/16 in. x 22 3/16 in.)
- Century
- late 19th - early 20th century
- Primary Object Classification
- Painting
- Primary Object Type
- hanging scroll
- Secondary Object Classification
- Painting
- Secondary Object Type
- figure painting
- Physical Description
- This late Qing portrait depicts an official in his formal court costume.
- Subject Matter
- Formal male (and female) court dress was worn with a piling (wide collar or capelet) over the shoulders. The costume also included a hat with decorations denoting rank and a looped court necklace. Though these necklaces always had the same number of beads (108), those with larger diameters resulted in a longer chain, such as the one worn by the official in this painting. This style was common in the late Qing period. The figure’s blue winter surcoat has an insignia badge with a Mandarin duck surrounded by clouds; this suggests he is a seventh-rank civil official (there were nine ranks in the civil official or wenguan hierarchy in the Qing court). Traditionally, as here, Ming (1368–1644) and Qing dynasty ancestral portrait paintings emphasized verisimilitude in the depiction of faces because they were treated as objects of worship rather than art. The receding ground plane, use of oblique lines in the top section of the tapestry, and three-dimensional presence of the body in this painting, however, suggest there is also a Western influence.
- Rights
- If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/about/services/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.
Technical Details
- Collection
- University of Michigan Museum of Art
- Image Size
- 1282 x 2844
- File Size
- 485 KB
- Record
- 2002/1.218.1
- Link to this Item
-
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-2002-sl-1.218.1/2002_1.218.1.jpg
Rights and Permissions
Related Links
Portfolios
IIIF
- Manifest
-
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/api/manifest/musart:2002-SL-1.218.1:2002_1.218.1.JPG
Cite this Item
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- Full citation
-
"Ancestral Portrait, Male; Artist Unknown, China." In the digital collection University of Michigan Museum of Art. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-2002-sl-1.218.1/2002_1.218.1.jpg. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed March 28, 2024.