Fisherman and family
Attributed to Zhang Lu Chinese
Not on view
Images of family life are relatively rare in premodern Chinese painting. This glimpse into the simple existence of a fisherman and his family aboard their small skiff was no doubt romanticized by the painter, whose style suggests a sophisticated artist working in the urban environs of Hangzhou rather than someone painting from observation along a countryside waterway. This painting presents the fisherman and his family as sincere and hardworking, their lives untouched by the vicissitudes of officialdom.