Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009755Bird Sleeping on a Plum Tree
About the Artwork
The plum’s status as the orthodox symbol of the literati’s pure spirit originated in Lin Bu’s poem "Tiny Plum Flowers in Mountain Garden." The plum was also widely depicted in Korean paintings as part of the Four Gentlemen—or Four Gracious Plants—motif. Here, the plum and bamboo express literati spirituality while the bird with its head pointing downward indicates the artist’s feelings about the unstable situation at the end of the Joseon period. Yang Ki-hun was a Korean scholar-official renowned for painting and calligraphy. King Gojong (reigned 1863–1907) was one of Yang's prominent patrons.
Provenance
?–1998: The Honorable Joseph P. Carroll and Roberta Carroll, MD, New York, NY 1998: (Joseph P. Carroll, Ltd., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1998–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 15-August 21, 2011).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Yang Ki-hun (Seuk-Eun) (Korean, 1843–1919?)
- Date
- early 1900s
- Medium
- hanging scroll; ink on silk
- Dimensions
- Overall: 103 x 112.4 cm (40 9/16 x 44 1/4 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Korean Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Accession no.
- 1998.31
More by Yang Ki-hun (Seuk-Eun) in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009755
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