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Saying Farewell at Xunyang (Song of the Pipa)
Also known as: The Lute Song: Saying Farwell at Hsün-yang; The Lute Song: Saying Farewell at Xunyang; Saying Farewell at Xunyang
About the Artwork
This handscroll depicts The Song of the Pipa, a poem by Bai Juyi 白居易 (772–846) written after the poet’s encounter with a pipa player on the Yangzi River. Expelled from her home city when her beauty and fame had faded, she played for the poet at night. Her musical performance and tragic life story resonated with Bai Juyi, who had just been demoted and exiled from life at court himself. The hazy, vast view and pale color tonalities of this painting illustrate these feelings of endless sadness, having lost one’s sense of purpose in life.
Inscriptions
"潯陽送客圖" 五峰山人文伯仁寫于停雲館中 [印] 文伯仁; 五峰; 2 colophons and 9 additional seals: 1 transcription of "Pipa xing 琵琶行” (Song of Pipa) and 3 seals of Zhu Yizun 朱彜尊 (1629–1709); 2 seals of Wu Rongguang 吳榮光 (1773–1843); 1 colophon, dated 1826, and 3 seals of Wu Xijia 吳錫嘉 (mid-1700s)
Provenance
Wu Xijia 吳錫嘉 [mid-1700s] by 1932: Yamamoto Teijiro 山本悌二郎 [1870–1937], Tokyo, Japan ?–1954: (Howard Hollis & Company, Cleveland, OH, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1954–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Chinese Landscape Painting. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 5-December 26, 1954). Migrations of Memory—The Poetry and Power of Music. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 19, 2021-May 8, 2022).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Wen Boren (Chinese, 1502–1575)
- Date
- 1500s
- Medium
- handscroll; ink and color on paper
- Dimensions
- Overall: 27 x 271.3 cm (10 5/8 x 106 13/16 in.); Painting only: 21 x 60 cm (8 1/4 x 23 5/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Chinese Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Accession no.
- 1954.581
More by Wen Boren 文伯仁 in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009570
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