The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of March 22, 2025
Children at Play
1508
(Chinese, active c. 1405–1445)
Painting: 62.5 x 113.7 cm (24 5/8 x 44 3/4 in.); Overall with knobs: 214 x 137 cm (84 1/4 x 53 15/16 in.)
Gift of Charles L. Freer 1915.110
Location: not on view
Did You Know?
In the foreground on the right are three boys playing a kind of blind man’s bluff.Description
Sixteen children engage in scholarly, religious, and military activities, representing the popular “one hundred boys” theme expressing the wish for abundant, successful male offspring. Such paintings conveying auspicious wishes were often displayed during the New Year festival season.Two older boys wear small crowns with red tassels. Another child with a mask holds a brush in one hand, a rice measure in the other. He stands on a low table imitating Kuixing, the God of Examinations and servant to the God of Literature.
- ?-1915Charles L. Freer [1854–1919], Detroit, MI, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art1915-The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Stories from Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).A Study Exhibition of Chinese Textiles of the Ming and Ch'ing Periods. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 12, 1947-October 9, 1948).
- {{cite web|title=Children at Play|url=false|author=Xia Kui|year=1508|access-date=22 March 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1915.110