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Image Not Available for Glistening Green Pond
Glistening Green Pond
Image Not Available for Glistening Green Pond

Glistening Green Pond

Xiang Shengmo (Chinese, 1597–1658)
17th century
Object PlaceChina
Medium/Techniqueink and color on paper
DimensionsImage: 87.4 × 22.3 cm (34 7/16 × 8 3/4 in.)
Overall: 249.2 × 60 cm (98 1/8 × 23 5/8 in.)
Credit LineGift of the Wan-go H. C. Weng Collection and the Weng family, in honor of Weng Tonghe
Accession number2018.2806
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsPaintings
Collections
Description

Xiang Shengmo was born in the region of the Yangzi River Delta, near Changshu. His grandfather collected Chinese paintings and calligraphy, and Xiang’s work showed a comprehensive understanding of ancient masters’ styles.

 

At the top of this painting, there is a seal reading “Yu Qing Gong Shuhua Ji”, indicating that the work once hung in the Yu Qing Palace (Palace of Cultivating Happiness) in the Forbidden City in Beijing. Changshu and Beijing were the two most meaningful places for the collector Weng Tonghe—one was his hometown; the other was the center of power in the country and the place where he spent the apex of his career. When he served as tutor of the crown prince in the imperial court, he worked in this same Yu Qing Palace—the schoolroom for princes as well as a library for the emperor—for more than thirteen years. When Weng Tonghe viewed this painting in 1887, he recalled in an inscription the times he spent in the Yu Qing Palace and that others often referred to him as Teacher of Yu Qing Palace.

Provenance19th century, Weng Tonghe (b. 1830 - d. 1904), Beijing and Changshu, China; 1904, by inheritance from Weng Tonghe to his great-grandson, Weng Zhilian (d. 1919), Changshu and Tianjin; 1919, by inheritance from Weng Zhilian to his son, Wan-go H.C. Weng, Tianjin, New York, and New Hampshire; 2002, transferred to the Hsing Ching Weng Trust, New Hampshire; 2018, gift of the Hsing Ching Weng Trust to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 12, 2018)