Landscape with Mountain Village

Painted on paper in ink and the relatively light shades of color that the literati painters of the Suzhou-based Wu School typically employed, this long handscroll presents a panoramic view of trees and mountains along a waterway. Although rocks, trees, and mountains dominate the scene, tiny figures appear throughout the landscape, crossing bridges, inhabiting village dwellings, and fishing from small boats. At the end of the scroll, the painting is dated and signed by the artist Wen Zhengming (1470-1559), an important literati painter from Suzhou and a leading figure of the Wu School. A colophon by the Qing scholar Weng Tonghe (1830-1904) follows the painting and comments on the artist's great skill in capturing the essence of past masters while still exhibiting his individualistic style and the meticulous brushwork for which Wen Zhengming was renowned. (A notable Chinese statesman who served as Prime Minister of China, Weng Tonghe was not only a collector and connoisseur but Wan-go H.C. Weng's great-great-grandfather. The colophon and seal indicate that Weng Tonghe collected this scroll, likely in the mid- to late nineteenth century. The scroll, along with the entire collection, remained in the Weng Family through succeeding generations, until the collection was inherited by the infant Wan-go H.C. Weng in 1919.)