City of Memory: Nanjing in the Seventeenth Century

The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Douglas Dillon Galleries 210–216 · New York · –

Looks at how artists lived and worked in Nanjing in the decades before and after the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644, and at the city's role as a site of historical and cultural memory. Drawn mostly from The Met collection, it follows Nanjing painting from the 1640s to the 1680s, with landscape albums by Zhang Feng, Hu Yukun and Gao Cen and an album of calligraphy by the Nanjing scholar-critic Zhou Lianggong.

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Closed Wednesdays, Thanksgiving Day (November 26), December 25 and January 1.
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  • Adults $30
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  • Students $17
  • Visitors with a disability $22
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Works (4)

  1. 1982-1-7. Orchid and rock Attributed to Ma Shouzhen · Hanging scroll; ink on paper · Dated 1572 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Follow one long orchid leaf, then compare its arc with the short marks that give the rock its weight.
  2. 1989-363-132. Wintry mountains Gong Xian · Hanging scroll; ink on paper · About 1679–89 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Find a roof among the bare trees, then follow the pale intervals upward through the mountains.
  3. 2016-743. Reminiscence of Jinling Wang Gai · Handscroll; ink and color on silk · 1686 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Begin at the right of the visible section and follow the waterways between the buildings and hills.
  4. CP76. Page from the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Painting and Calligraphy Illustrated by Hu Zhengyan and others · Individual leaf from a printed book; ink and color on paper · First edition printed in 1633 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Compare the fruit-filled vessel with the perforated rock: one gathers rounded forms, while the other opens into holes.

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