On loan to The Met The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Gathering on the Lantern Festival
Lu Zhi Chinese
Not on view
In early 1547, the scholar-artist Wen Zhengming invited a group of friends to his Suzhou home to celebrate the first full moon of the year, called Shangyuan, also known as the Lantern Festival. One of his guests, Lu Shidao, preserved his invitation, along with other letters exchanged about the party, and mounted them with this painting, commissioned from another guest, Lu Zhi. Taken together, the painting and letters are an unusually well-preserved crystallization of friendship between elites from Ming-dynasty China. The painting exists in at least two versions; scholar Joseph Chang has recently argued that this version of the painting, which has never before been publicly exhibited, is the authentic version, while the others are copies.
