Composed more than 2,500 years ago, Odes of the State of Bin is part of The Book of Odes, one of the Confucian classics. The poem chronicles the annual cycle of activites in the countryside: the unfolding stages of the agricultural and sericultural year; preparation for seasonal changes; domestic activities; sources of nourishment; and requisite ritual acts. This scroll, a work in the baimiao ("plain drawing") style executed in the thirteenth century, uses a continuous narrative format; no text is included. Lacking illustrations to the first two stanzas of the poem, it opens with a scene of picking mulberry leaves for silkworms.
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Viewed by Dong Qichang at the beginning of summer, the twenty-second day of the third month of the dingmao year, the seventh year of the Tianqi reign era [1627].
天啓七年丁卯嵗三月廿二立夏日董其昌觀。 [印]：董其昌印
Collectors' seals
Wang Gou 王構 (1245–1310) 王構私印（十八鈐） 瓠山 遂慵 安野堂 王氏肯堂 巨山（十一鈐）
Wang Shimin 王時敏 (1592–1680) 太原王遜之氏收藏圖書 王時敏印（半印） 西廬（半印）
Gu Luofu 顧洛阜 (John M. Crawford, Jr., 1913–1988) 顧洛阜 漢光閣
Unidentified 平曲侯印 赤泉侯印 (二鈐) 子孫保之 昌（五鈐）
Marking:
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Text and Image: The Interaction of Painting, Poetry, and Calligraphy," January 23–August 16, 1999.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The World of Scholars' Rocks: Gardens, Studios, and Paintings," February 1–August 20, 2000.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Cultivated Landscapes: Reflections of Nature in Chinese Painting with Selections from the Collection of Marie-Hélène and Guy Weill," September 10, 2002–February 9, 2003.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Douglas Dillon Legacy: Chinese Painting for the Metropolitan Museum," March 12–August 8, 2004.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Four Seasons," January 28–August 13, 2006.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Chinese Gardens: Pavilions, Studios, Retreats," August 18, 2012–January 6, 2013.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting," October 29, 2016–August 6, 2017.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Up Close," January 25, 2020–June 27, 2021.
Zhang Zhao 張照 et al. Midian zhulin shiqu baoji 祕殿珠林石渠寶笈 (Catalogue of painting and calligraphy in the Qianlong imperial collection). Preface dated 1745. Facsimile reprint of an original manuscript copy. vol. 2, Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1971, p. 963.
Smith, Bradley, and Wan-go Weng. China: A History in Art. New York: Harper & Row, [1972?], pp. 186–87.
Weng, Wan-go, and Thomas Lawton. Chinese Painting and Calligraphy: A Pictorial Survey: 69 Fine Examples from the John Crawford, Jr. Collection. New York: Dover Publications, 1978, pp. 38–41, fig. 19.
Cahill, James. An Index of Early Chinese Painters and Paintings: T'ang, Sung, and Yüan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
Suzuki Kei 鈴木敬, ed. Chûgoku kaiga sogo zuroku: Daiikan, Amerika-Kanada Hen 中國繪畫總合圖錄: 第一卷 アメリカ - カナダ 編 (Comprehensive illustrated catalog of Chinese paintings: vol. 1 American and Canadian collections) Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1982, pp. 98–99, cat. no. A15-023.
Shih Shou-ch'ien, Maxwell K. Hearn, and Alfreda Murck. The John M. Crawford, Jr., Collection of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Checklist. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984, p. 20, cat. no. 29.
Fong, Wen C. Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, 8th–14th Century. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992, pp. 222–25, pls. 30a, 30b.
Hearn, Maxwell K., and Wen C. Fong. Along the Riverbank: Chinese Paintings from the C. C. Wang Family Collection. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, p. 91, fig. 66.
Murck, Alfreda. Poetry and Painting in Song China: The Subtle Art of Dissent. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2000, pp. 246–50, figs. 38–40.
Törmä, Minna. Landscape Experience as Visual Narrative: Northern Song Dynasty Landscape Handscrolls in the Li Cheng–Yan Wengui Tradition. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2002, p. 107, fig. 45.
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