Public data from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Learn more
New Year's Day in a Village at Stone Lake
by Li Shida
About the Artwork
This rural scene presents typical activities of a New Year’s Day in which relatives and friends approach the house to convey their good wishes to the elders. Two boys in the courtyard light fire crackers, and servants in front of the main gate beat the gong to announce the guests. Inside the house, the hosts entertain their guests by offering hot wine and by writing New Year couplets to be hung on the gates welcoming the New Year. White cherry blossoms announce the spring. The water village at Stone Lake is characteristic of the Jiangnan region in southeast China. Born in Suzhou, the artist Li Shida may have even had his hometown in mind when he produced this painting.
Exhibition history
Year in Review: 1980. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 24-July 19, 1981). Greeting the Spring (Chinese art rotation, galleries 240a, 239, 241c). The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 11-August 13, 2017). China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 10, 2023-January 7, 2024).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Li Shida (Chinese, c. 1549–c. 1621)
- Date
- 1609
- Medium
- Album leaf; ink and light color on paper
- Dimensions
- Overall: 33.3 x 53 cm (13 1/8 x 20 7/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Chinese Art
- Credit line
- Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Accession no.
- 1980.178
Provenance
?–1980: (Katsuhiro Kobayashi. Tokyo, Japan, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1980–: 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-00010027
Request removalPowered by Art Trackers