Yang Guifei Leaving the Bath
1704
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1704
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Yang Guifei Leaving the Bath is a 1704 unspecified by Gu Jianlong, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A woman in a thin red robe steps out of a bath in a quiet room. The fabric clings to her skin, letting you see the shape of her body underneath. A maid waits nearby, holding a towel. This isn’t just any woman—it’s Yang Guifei, a famous beauty from an old Chinese love story. The artist painted her in 18th-century style, even though she lived centuries earlier. The see-through robe was real fashion at the time, made from lightweight silk for hot weather. To see more paintings like this, look up china, qing dynasty (1644-1911).
This painting relates to the legendary love story between Tang dynasty (618–906) emperor Xuanzong and his consort, the beautiful Yang Guifei. Set in what appears to be an 18th-century southern interior, the artist depicts Yang Guifei in a fashionable dress of semitransparent red gauze. Due to the warm and humid climate in China’s southeast, local silk workshops specialized and excelled in making airy gauze garments. Yang’s nude body can be seen through the red robe as she leaves the bath. Her servant offers her a bowl of soup. The presence of a male figure would have been a breach of…
Due to the warm and humid climate in China’s southeast, silk workshops specialized in making airy gauze garments, like the one worn by Yang Guifei here.
Read the full account in the museum source.
