Public data from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Learn more
About the Artwork
This painting captures a squirrel in action, distracted and twisting its head while climbing and looking at a little bug to the right. The painter skillfully employs a combination of ink washes and fine brushstrokes to simulate the animal’s fur. Only three simple curved lines depict the squirrel’s claws. The subject of squirrels did not appear in Chinese painting before the late Southern Song (1127–1279) and Yuan periods (1279–1368). The painter Songtian was one of the few Yuan painters who specialized in this theme.
Exhibition history
Greeting the Spring (Chinese art rotation, galleries 240a, 239, 241c). The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 11-August 13, 2017). Layers of Meaning: China’s Flora and Fauna in Painting and on Porcelain. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 6, 2020-June 6, 2021).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Song Tian (Chinese, active 1300s)
- Date
- 1500s
- Medium
- hanging scroll, ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Overall: 119.7 x 66.4 cm (47 1/8 x 26 1/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Chinese Art
- Credit line
- Gift from the Collection of George Gund III
- Accession no.
- 2015.498
Provenance
?-1997: (Heisondo Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, sold to George Gund III) 1997-2015: George Gund III [1937-2013] bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art 2015-: 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.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009801
Request removalPowered by Art Trackers