Portrait of a man in court robes with fur surcoat

Unidentified artist

Not on view

This portrait depicts a middle-aged man in court robes topped by a sumptuous fur coat. Building on both Chinese and European precedents, the artist shaded the face to suggest three-dimensional volume; the glistening white dot in the eye, suggesting moistness, is a purely European convention adopted by the artist during a time when images from abroad were becoming more widely available in China. The man sits before a screen painted with a floral rebus, or multipart visual pun: magnolia (yulan 玉蘭), crab apple (haitang 海棠), and peony (nicknamed fugui 富貴) combine to mean “fortune in the jade hall” (yutang fugui 玉堂富貴), a wish for riches and honor. With such an auspicious background, this portrait was likely made for a milestone birthday; after the death of the sitter, it could have been repurposed for veneration in the ancestral shrine.

Portrait of a man in court robes with fur surcoat, Unidentified artist (Chinese, late 18th–19th century), Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, China

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pre-treatment, do not put online

Portrait of a man in court robes with fur surcoat, Unidentified artist (Chinese, late 18th–19th century), Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, China
Portrait of a man in court robes with fur surcoat, Unidentified artist (Chinese, late 18th–19th century), Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper, China

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