Artist: Xu Beihong (1895-1953)

Date: Modern

Dimensions: Height 80.8 cm, Width 32.8 cm

Material: Ink and color on paper

Gift of Sun Yufeng and Wang Defeng

• Object Type：
  • PAINTINGS
• Location：
  • Chinese Painting Gallery
• Tag：
  • cat butterfly hanging scroll xu beihong modern ink and color paper

Xu Beihong (1895-1953), originally named Xu Shoukang, was a native of Yixing, Jiangsu (present-day Wuxi). He was skilled in figures, animals, and bird-and-flower painting, especially good at painting horses, and advocated for the integration of Chinese and Western styles. This painting depicts a playful scene of a cat and butterfly. The motif of a cat and butterfly is a visual pun on the homophonic phrase mao die, which signifies longevity. This scroll was painted in 1943 as a birthday gift for a friend of Xu in the Qingcheng Mountain in Sichuan. The artist was 49 at the time.