Cleveland Museum of Art

Oath of the Peach Garden, from Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Matsumura Goshun

Date

c. 1780

Medium

hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Culture

Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This painting depicts a pivotal scene from the classic Chinese historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms . Three men, Liu Bei, seen to the left, and Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, seen to the right, become sworn brothers amid peach blossom trees. Set toward the end of China’s Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE), the episode features the tagline “We seek not to be born on the same day but hope that we may die on the same day.” Written in the 1300s, the first published translation in Japanese appeared around 1690, after which it exploded in popularity. Matsumura Goshun was trained in literati art by Yosa Buson and Maruyama Ōkyo.

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