A Quatrain about Peonies
1766
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1766
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
A Quatrain about Peonies is a 1766 by Unknown, a Baroque work, depicting Qianlong Reign, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see four peonies in a row, each on its own branch, printed in soft pinks and greens against a pale background. This is a woodblock print—meaning each color was stamped from a separate carved block. The artist never signed it, so we don’t know who made it. The flowers were printed during the Qianlong reign, when this kind of colorful printing was at its best in China. To see more work from this time, look up the subject qing dynasty (1644–1911).
Woodblock printing in color reached its height in China in the 1600s to 1700s. It was executed by means of sets of separate blocks, each carved to print a different color.
In the 1600s, printing flourished in such Jiangnan cities as Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Huizhou, evolving from privately enjoyed illustrated books printed in color to more commercialized single-sheet color prints that were hung on walls and became part of the rich urban visual culture.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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