Cleveland Museum of Art

Rain-coming Pavilion by the Stone Bridge at Mt. Tiantai

Dai Xi

Date

1848

Medium

handscroll, ink on paper

Culture

China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911)

Department

Chinese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The subject is not just Mount Tiantai in Zhejiang Province, the ancient seat of the most powerful Buddhist sect of Sui and Tang dynasties, but records a specific occasion in 1838 when an official visited Tiantai and began the reconstruction of a historic pavilion. As this coincided with the end of a long drought, the building was auspiciously renamed the Yulai (Rain-Coming 雨來) Pavilion. Ten years later, Dai Xi painted this handscroll to commemorate the occasion. Dai Xi actively resisted the Taiping rebels and drowned himself after their 1860 capture of his hometown, Hangzhou. For this loyal deed, Dai was posthumously rewarded with a temple built in his name.

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