Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.

One Hundred Boys

China

Not on view

“One Hundred Boys” is a popular pictorial subject that expresses an agricultural society’s abiding wish for teeming male offspring. Here, the prominent presence of lanterns suggests the occasion of the Lantern Festival, the climactic ending of the New Year’s celebrations, held on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

This print, in the hanging scroll format, was made with three horizontal woodblocks impressed on a large sheet of paper. The complex architecture and fine line shading reveal knowledge of Western copperplate engravings introduced by the Jesuits.

One Hundred Boys, Woodblock print; color on paper, China

Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.