Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Poem on Boating on the Qinhuai River
Calligrapher Mei Qing Chinese
Not on view
清 梅清 行書秦淮舟泛詩 軸 紙本
As an artist, Mei Qing is best remembered for his paintings, and the dramatic variations of ink tonality in this rare, purely calligraphic work reveal a painterly sensibility. The poem, also composed by Mei, relates the delights of boating in the evening with a friend on the Qinhuai River in Nanjing and celebrates the city’s vibrant night life, as reflected in the last line: “The flute music is hard to resist when intoxicated.” The poem may have been composed in the 1680s, when Mei visited his friend, the famous monk-artist Shitao (1642–1707), in Nanjing.
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