Cleveland Museum of Art

Family Gathering on New Year's Morning

Date

late 1760s

Medium

Silk and wool: tapestry weave

Culture

China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)

Department

Textiles

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This European-style tapestry depicts a family gathering, in a woven Western picture frame, that presumably once furnished the Hall of Cultivating the Mind ( Yangxin dian ) in the Forbidden City. The tapestry employs Western perspective and shading combined with the traditional Chinese subject of a family gathering in a palace, including motifs expressing wishes for good fortune and for a peaceful reign. In 1766, six French tapestries had been presented to the Chinese court. The Qianlong emperor was so intrigued that he commissioned tapestries in the French style from Suzhou. Records mention an imperial order for tapestries in the Western style, such as this one, in 1769, 1770, and 1775.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.