Boating Under Autumn Moon
Height x width (painting only): 24.2 × 113.2 cm (9 1/2 × 44 9/16 in.)
The versatile painter Hua Yan enjoyed traveling. Before he moved to Yangzhou—a city that had a vibrant art market due to salt merchants who supported the local artists—Hua Yan lived in the culturally rich city of Hangzhou and the capital Beijing. A poem he wrote summarized his life: "How many autumns have the northern horses and the southern boats spent with me?"
Hua Yan produced this painting in 1748, two days after the Double Ninth Festival, an autumn holiday when people traditionally hiked to mountaintops and looked at chrysanthemums. In this handscroll, Hua Yan depicts a tranquil moment at night instead of festive activities during the daytime. A solitary man sits in a boat along a riverbank surrounded by delicate reeds; a full moon hangs above in the clear night sky. The moon offers a clue that Hua Yan was painting an imagined scene rather than reality. On the 9th day of a lunar month, the Moon would be waxing gibbous rather than full.
