Date：2025-11-14 - 2026-02-22
Location：The Shanghai Museum on People's Square, No.1 Exhibition Hall (1F)
Organizers：The Shanghai Museum

The art of Chinese fan painting and calligraphy enjoys a long and distinguished history, forming a unique artistic system imbued with profound cultural connotations. It stands as a classic aesthetic example of qi yi zai dao, the Chinese philosophical notion that a tangible object can be a vessel for the Way of Nature.

The Shanghai Museum is home to an exceptional collection of fan artworks, numbering in the thousands. Spanning nearly a thousand years from the silk round fan leaves of the Northern Song dynasty to the folding fans of the modern era, the collection offers a comprehensive chronological sweep. The subject matter is also richly diverse, encompassing landscape, bird-and-flower, and figure paintings, as well as calligraphy, while the works themselves appear in different physical forms, ranging from unmounted fan leaves to fully assembled fans. Themed "The Beauty of Fan-tasy", this exhibition follows the developmental arc of fan art, selecting 100 masterpieces from the Museum's collection. These works represent various periods, from the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties to the modern age. Among them are exceptionally rare treasures, including what is currently the earliest known calligraphy on a round fan leaf—Two Lines of a Seven-character Poem in Cursive Script by Emperor Huizong (Zhao Ji) of the Song dynasty; a rare painting on a round fan leaf from the Yuan dynasty by a renowned master—Fishing by the Autumn River by Sheng Mao; an early Ming dynasty painting on a folding fan leaf—Fishing Boat by Riverbank Trees by Xie Jin; as well as fully assembled fans, such as the one that features on its front Imitating Ni Zan's Landscape Painting by Wang Yuanqi, one of the Four Wangs of the early Qing, and on its back Miao Tong's running-script calligraphy.

Grounded in dedicated organisation and research of the Museum's collection, this exhibition seeks to trace the centuries-old artistic evolution of Chinese fan painting and calligraphy. We warmly invite its visitors to discover the fan-tastic beauty of traditional Chinese culture unfolded in these exquisite works.

Two Lines of a Seven-character Poem in Cursive Script

Plum Blossoms, Bamboos, and a Winter Bird

A Pavilion on a Moonlit Night

Returning Drunk to the Flower Retreat

A Wagtail on the Lotus Pond

Corn Poppies

Fishing by the Autumn River

Clearing Up after Snow

Trailing a Walking Stick on a Plain in the Countryside

The Three Friends of Winter (a.k.a. Pine, Bamboo, and Plum Tree)

Mountain and Stream in Wind and Rain

An Ape and an Egret

Hollyhocks

Returning Riders at a Bridge over the Stream

Selling Fish by the Snowy Stream

Spring Outing at a Palace in the Mountain

Fishing Boat by Riverbank Trees

Sparse Trees and a Small Bridge

"First Visit to the Red Cliff" in Regular Script

"Drinking beneath the Blossoms", a Song in Running Script

"Dwelling in Seclusion in Autumn", a Poem in Cursive Script

A Mountain Bird in the Crabapple Tree

Green Mountains and White Clouds

Bamboos, Rocks, and Plum Blossoms

Darkish Rocks as Roots of Clouds

A Congratulatory Poem to Ziweng in Regular Script

Orchids and Rocks

Running-script Calligraphy

Corner of Mount Tiantai / A Ci-poem in Memory of Wuchang in Running Script

Youjun [i.e. Wang Xizhi]'s Writing on the Fan