Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715), Streams and Mountains without End (detail), Qing dynasty (1644–1911), undated, handscroll, ink on paper, 7 1/8 in. x 70 ft. (43.5 x 2133.6 cm), Partial and Promised Gift of the Family of Lo Chia-Lun, 2022 (2022.128)

Learning to Paint in Premodern China,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
February 18, 2023-January 7, 2024
This exhibition will consider the underexplored question of how painters learned their craft in premodern China. Some painters learned at home, from fathers, mothers, or other relatives among whom painting was a shared language of familial communication. Others learned from friends who shared their passion. Still others turned to painting manuals, treatises that expanded knowledge of painting to anyone who could buy a woodblock-printed book. Paintings from The Met collection, along with a choice selection of important works from local private collectors, will illuminate these and other pathways to becoming a painter in premodern China. The exhibition will be presented in two rotations.

Rotation 1: February 18–July 16, 2023
Rotation 2: August 12, 2023–January 7, 2024

The exhibition will also see the public debut of Wang Yuanqi’s (1642–1715) Streams and Mountains without End, an important monumental handscroll that is a partial and promised gift to the Museum from the family of Lo Chia-lun.