Tea Drinking Under the Wutong Tree

Tang Yin, Ming dynasty (1369–1644), 1509

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Artist: Tang Yin (Chinese, 1470–1523)
Medium: Handscroll; ink and slight color on paper
Size: 23.4 × 332.8 cm (9 3/16 × 131 in.)
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Generations of Chinese intellectuals and Buddhist monks honed the practice of tea tasting into a high art form. The "bamboo stove" —a carrying case that contained a ceramic kettle used for heating water—was central to the process of tea preparation. This ingenious device, fanned by a servant in the center of this painting, was the subject of a poem by Wu Kuan (1435-1504), a close friend of Tang Yin. In this composition, Wu appears on a low platform with a teapot and a scroll by his side. He shared the tea ceremony with a Buddhist monk, while another servant draws fresh water from a nearby stream.

Five years after Wu Kuan's death, Tang Yin executed this delicate vignette in the writer's memory. The first colophon was written by Zhu Yunming (1461-1527), a famous poet and calligrapher who exchanged tea-related verses with Mr. Wu. Such commemorative paintings provide poignant records of Chinese intellectual and cultured society.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0.