Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009688Emperor Yao Visiting Yu Chonghua
Also known as: Emperor Yao Visiting his Successor on the Farm
About the Artwork
One of a pair, this screen shows a section of the narrative of how the Chinese Emperor Yao (about 2356–2255 BC) selected his successor, Yu Chonghua (about 2294– 2184 BC), who would become Emperor Shun. The artist who painted this screen, Kusumi Morikage, trained with Kano Tan’yō (1602–1647), painter-in-residence to Japan’s shogun, the country’s ruler, and was one of his four top students. Despite the conservative subject matter, Morikage’s distinctive sensibility shines through in his playful treatment of the gray and white elephants in the far left panel of the composition. According to legend, Chonghua was so virtuous that in the spring, elephants bounded down from the mountains to help him till the soil with their tusks.
Inscriptions
signature and seal at lower right.
Provenance
?-1968: (Harry C. Nail, Jr. [1909-1990] sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1968: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Year in Review for 1968. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 29-March 9, 1969). Japanese Screens from the Museum and Cleveland Collections. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 23-May 8, 1977). Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 8, 1987-January 10, 1988). Japanese Gallery 235 Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 2-July 9, 2018).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Kusumi Morikage (Japanese, active c. 1620–1690)
- Date
- mid- to late 1600s
- Medium
- One of a pair of six-panel folding screens, ink, slight color, and gold on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 131.9 x 348 cm (51 15/16 x 137 in.); Including mounting: 147.3 x 363.7 cm (58 x 143 3/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Accession no.
- 1968.105
More by Kusumi Morikage in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009688
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