Artwork

遼宴飲圖（殘片）|Banquet Scene

遼宴飲圖（殘片）|Banquet Scene is an ink painting. It dates from 1016 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This ink-on-silk painting, titled "Banquet Scene," is a surviving fragment from a larger wall hanging.

Accession no.: 1999.195
Credit line: Seymour Fund, 1999

About this work

Subject & Meaning

This silk fragment depicts a genre scene of a banquet, featuring both male and female figures engaged in a gathering centered around food.

This silk fragment depicts a genre scene of a banquet, featuring both male and female figures engaged in a gathering centered around food. As a remnant of a larger wall hanging, the image captures a moment of social interaction and dining, characteristic of domestic or courtly life in the Liao dynasty. The iconography focuses on the tangible elements of the feast, with the presence of foodstuffs serving as the central motif around which the figures are arranged.

The survival of this scene on a textile medium highlights the importance of such domestic narratives in the decorative arts of the time.

Technique & Style

The Banquet Scene is a fragment of a Liao dynasty wall hanging executed in ink on silk. The silk support survives only as a torn section, indicating the work's damaged condition. Rendered in monochrome ink, the painting employs brushwork typical of Chinese genre painting, arranging figures of men and women amid food offerings.

As an anonymous work housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it measures approximately 37.1 cm high by 66 cm wide. The composition captures a convivial banquet, emphasizing narrative detail and delicate line work characteristic of Liao-period silk paintings.

Context

The fragment known as 遼宴飲圖 (Banquet Scene) originates from a Chinese wall hanging dated to the Liao period. Executed in ink on silk, it portrays a banquet with food, a man, and a woman and is classified as a genre scene. The work, attributed to an anonymous painter, measures 37.1 cm in height and 66 cm in width and is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Its survival as a fragment of a larger decorative composition illustrates the aesthetic preferences of elite Chinese interiors and provides insight into the anonymous tradition of wall hangings that documented contemporary social rituals.

Overview

This ink-on-silk painting, titled "Banquet Scene," is a surviving fragment from a larger wall hanging. It depicts individuals engaged in a social gathering, consuming food and drink. Its incomplete nature offers a partial view into a broader narrative, inviting contemplation about the original composition and the full extent of the depicted event.