Chinese Beauty

About the Artwork

Ukiyo-e artists’ exploration of beautiful people extended to figures from other lands. Here, an elegant Chinese palace lady holding a fan stands before a banana plant. The poem at the top is written in a Japanese appropriation of Chinese called kanbun. Based on its imagery of a palanquin (an enclosed couch with poles used for carrying passengers), silk fan, and autumn winds, it may allude to the story of Lady Ban (about 48 BC–about AD 2). A Chinese beauty famous for her scholarly achievements, Ban was once consort to an emperor but later lost his favor. In a poem attributed to her, she compared herself to a used silk fan put away in autumn.

Provenance

?–1988: (Eastern Fine Arts, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1988–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Exhibition history

A Private World: Japanese and Chinese Art from the Kelvin Smith Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 14-November 13, 1988). Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art. Nara National Museum (organizer) (February 21-March 29, 1998); Suntory Museum of Art (April 28-June 21, 1998). Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, Japan (January 15-February 23, 2014); Kyushu National Museum, Fukuoka, Japan (July 8-August 31, 2014). Japan’s Floating World 日本の浮世. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (April 8-October 9, 2022).

Quick Overview

Artist: Kubo Shunman (Japanese, 1757–1820)
Date: late 1700s–early 1800s
Medium: Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
Dimensions: Image: 96 x 37 cm (37 13/16 x 14 9/16 in.); Overall: 184.2 x 53.3 cm (72 1/2 x 21 in.)
Type: Painting
Classification: Painting
Department: Japanese Art
Credit line: Kelvin Smith Fund
Accession no.: 1988.1

More by Kubo Shunman in museum collections

Mt. Fuji through Pines
Kubo Shunman
late 1700s-early 1800s · Painting
Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of ArtAT-00010196

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