Untitled

Created in 1850 in China, this album of nineteen leaves depicting family portraits was executed by an anonymous artist. The work, classified as a painting on silk using ink and color, lacks a documented commission or specific creator attribution, remaining the product of an unknown painter. It entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it is currently housed.

The piece measures 33.3 cm in height and 35.9 cm in width. While the precise chain of ownership prior to its acquisition by the museum is not detailed in the available records, the work's inception is firmly dated to the year 1850. Its history is defined by its anonymous origin and its subsequent preservation within a major public institution rather than a traceable private lineage.

The album resides in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where it is recorded as accession number 2006.268. The work was exhibited at the museum in 2006 as part of the acquisition display, marking its first recorded public showing. No further exhibition history is documented in the cited sources.

The painting, recorded as an untitled album leaf from 1850, exemplifies mid‑nineteenth‑century Chinese portraiture and is attributed to an anonymous hand; its depiction of a family unit aligns with genre conventions noted in the catalog entry and the Wikidata record, which also situates the work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, thereby shaping its scholarly interpretation as a representative example of elite domestic imagery from that period; the attribution to an unknown painter and the documented dimensions and material support its classification within the museum’s holdings and inform ongoing research on anonymous portraiture in trans‑regional art markets.

This untitled album comprises nineteen individual paintings, each rendered with ink and vibrant colors on silk. The collection features various depictions of individuals or small groups, presented across its distinct pages. Despite its age, the artwork retains a notable clarity and brilliance in its palette, offering a cohesive visual experience through its sequential format.