Scroll painting: Peonies

Southeast Asian Collection

Accession Nr.: 59.89.1
Type: woodblock print; hanging scroll
Date of production:
1950s
Place of production:
Materials/Techniques: paper, woodblock printing, hand coloured, mounted as hanging scroll
Dimensions: height: 131 cm
width: 42. 5 cm
Rooster, hen and their chicks in front of a blooming peony bush. Top right with Chinese inscription.

Tứ bình is a 16th-century Vietnamese folk painting form that arranges four images with a common theme into a single series. Made in the Hàng Trống workshop in Hanoi, these pictures were usually made for the Tết, or Vietnamese New Year, similar to Đông Hồ prints, and were very popular with the population. The themes of the quartets all revolve around different states of things and change, such as the four seasons, the ages, four female musicians with different instruments, or the four important careers of the human.