Rain-coming Pavilion by the Stone Bridge at Mt. Tiantai

Also known as: Rain-coming Pavilion by the Stone Bridge at Mt. T'ien-t'ai; T'ien-t'ai Shih-liang, Yü-lai-t'ing t'u

About the Artwork

The subject is not just Mount Tiantai in Zhejiang Province, the ancient seat of the most powerful Buddhist sect of Sui and Tang dynasties, but records a specific occasion in 1838 when an official visited Tiantai and began the reconstruction of a historic pavilion. As this coincided with the end of a long drought, the building was auspiciously renamed the Yulai (Rain-Coming 雨來) Pavilion. Ten years later, Dai Xi painted this handscroll to commemorate the occasion.

Inscriptions

Artist's inscription, signature, and 2 seals: Painting of Rain-Coming Pavilion by the Stone Bridge at Mount Tiantai. In the twenty-eighth year of the Daoguang era [1848], the third lunar month, requested by and painted for Pan Gongfu 潘功甫 [Pan Zengyi 潘曾沂], a senior family friend. [signed] Your junior, Dai Xi from Qiantang. [seal] Hebi jian Dai 何必見戴. [seal, lower right corner] Shih-ping yeh.; Title on frontispiece and 3 seals of Ruan Yuan (1764–1849). 1 colophon and 10 additional seals: 1 colophon, dated 1838, and 8 seals of Pan Zengyi (1792–1853); 2 seals unidentified.; Colophon by Pan Zengyi: The T'anhua [a flower that blooms only momentarily in semi-tropical areas] Pavilion near Shiliang [the natural stone bridge] was built by the Grand Chancellor Jia. It lasted over seven hundred years. After it was destroyed this year, I happened to be there, so I suggested it be reconstructed. Among the six poems commemorating my visit, one reads: The career of the Prime Minister may be as great as the rivers and lakes, Unaware himself of the fact there is leaking. I had been all over the seventy-two peaks of P'eng-lai mountains When the timely rain came to T'an-hua Pavilion. It had not been raining for a long time there, then unexpectedly, the rain came simultaneously with my arrival; the old monk there asked me to change the name to Rain-Coming Pavilion, in order to record the joy. The hilly fields at Mt. Tiantai have suffered by droughts. If, from this year on, they have the timely rain to bring along bountiful harvests and make people happy - so may this pavilion be our witness. Hsiao-fu shan-jen, Pan Zengyi recorded this on the first day of the twelfth lunar month in the wuxu year [1838]. Chiang Yung-ching copied respectfully on the first day of the sixth lunar month in the wushen year [1848]. (translated by Ling-yün (Nora) Shih Liu and Wai-Kam Ho)

Exhibition history

Year in Review: 1979. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 13-March 9, 1980).

Quick Overview

Artist: Dai Xi (Chinese, 1801–1860)
Date: 1848
Medium: handscroll; ink on paper
Dimensions: Image: 34.5 x 142.6 cm (13 9/16 x 56 1/8 in.)
Type: Painting
Classification: Painting
Department: Chinese Art
Credit line: Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund
Accession no.: 1979.54

Provenance

?–1979: Wan-go H. C. Weng 翁萬戈 [1918–2020], Lyme, NH, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art 1979–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

More by Dai Xi in museum collections

Landscapes after old masters
Dai Xi
mid-19th century · Painting
Museum collection · via the Metropolitan Museum of ArtAT-00014028
Landscapes
Dai Xi
1848 · Painting
Museum collection · via the Metropolitan Museum of ArtAT-00014340

Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.