Han Gan (Chinese, act. ca. 742–56)
Night-Shining White, Tang dynasty (618–907), ca. 750
Handscroll: ink on paper; 12 1/8 x 13 3/8 in. (30.8 x 34 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, The Dillon Fund Gift, 1977 (1977.78)
Curator Comment
A leading horse painter of the Tang dynasty, Han Gan was known for capturing not only the physical likeness of a horse but also its spirit. This painting, the most famous of the works attributed to the artist, is a portrait of a favorite charger of emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–56). With its burning eye, flaring nostrils, and dancing hoofs, the fiery-tempered horse epitomizes Chinese myths about Central Asian "celestial steeds" that "sweated blood" and were actually dragons in disguise.
Han Gan is said to have preferred visits to the stables over the study of earlier paintings of horses, and his keen observation of actual animals is confirmed by his accurate rendering of equine movement. But Han's largely profile image and his reduction of the animal's anatomy to a series of abstract curves transform Night-Shining White into an archetypal "dragon steed." Only his addition of pale shading softens the geometry of the drawing, changing flat lines into three-dimensional flesh.
The numerous seals and inscriptions added to the painting and its borders by later owners and appreciators are a distinctive feature of Chinese collecting and connoisseurship. While collectors were sometimes overzealous in showing their appreciation in this manner, the addition of more than one thousand years of seals and comments offers a vivid testimony of the work's transmission and its impact on later generations.
The acquisition of this iconic image, arguably the greatest equine portrait in Chinese painting, marked Philippe de Montebello's early commitment to revitalizing the Museum's Department of Asian Art under the curatorial leadership of Wen Fong and with the dedicated support of trustee Douglas Dillon.
Maxwell K. Hearn, Douglas Dillon Curator, Department of Asian Art