Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009631Eighteen Views of Huzhou
by Song Xu
Also known as: Eighteen Views of Wuxing; Eighteen Views of Huzhou 湖州十八景圖
About the Artwork
By the 1500s, visits to historic and scenic sites in the lower Yangzi delta stimulated an increase of printed illustrated travel books. Topographical depictions of local scenery flourished. Leaves from this album illustrates sites around Lake Tai of the two adjacent counties Changxing and Wuxing (modern Huzhou). Song Xu, who lived intermittently in Jiaxing and Songjiang, must have passed through Wuxing by boat and thus knew the region. The paintings are inscribed with gazetteerlike notations, suggesting that the album was produced for clients as commemorative works, a travel guide, or for “armchair travel” (woyou) in one’s mind.
Inscriptions
包陽湖：自此數里，東出太湖甚近。北至香山可數里。過此即宜興界矣。; 呂山滙：蓋呂蒙曾屋此而云然。亦弁山餘派也，入郡中必由此。; 道場山：郡城南去，可五六里，為伏虎禪師道場。上有伏虎亭、望湖亭。南可見武林諸山。北盡震澤群峯之勝。俯窺城郭樓臺，佳麗如畫。; 碧巖山：山多古木，寺藏其中。今為人侵伐殆盡，遂成荒廢，遊者鮮矣。然嶺崖飛瀑，不減清致。
Provenance
?-1998: (Kaikodo America Inc., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1998-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Song Xu (Chinese, 1525-c. 1606)
- Date
- c. 1588
- Medium
- Album of eighteen leaves; ink and color on silk
- Dimensions
- Each leaf: 26.4 x 28.4 cm (10 3/8 x 11 3/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Chinese Art
- Credit line
- The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
- Accession no.
- 1998.78
More by Song Xu in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009631
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