Three Taoist Officials on an Inspection Tour
Ma Lin, (ca. 1180 - 1256)
Sung Dynasty

Beauties on an Outing
Attributed to Li Kung-lin (1049 - 1106)
Sung Dynasty

A Collection of Famous Paintings
Gallery 210
2000/1/1 - 2000/3/26
An Exhibition of Handscroll and Album Leaf Paintings
Galleries 302, 303
2000/1/1 - 2000/3/26
Large-scale Paintings
Gallery 201
2000/1/25 - 2000/3/31

Chinese painting is celebrated throughout the world for its unique style and diverse poetic qualities.  The National Palace Museum's collection of Chinese painting is in terms of quantity and quality, one of the best in  the world.  Chinese paintings were traditionally mounted in three different formats - hanging scrolls, handscrolls, and album leaves.  The hanging scroll is generally a large painting that hangs vertically on a wall as a decoration.  The handscroll typically contains a long, horizontal composition which is "read" from right to left.  The traditional way to view a  handscroll was to unroll it with the left hand and roll it with the right hand at the same time.  Thus, only one section of the painting was displayed at any given time.  The album leaf format refers to relatively small-scale paintings mounted in folding or book-bound albums.  The respective mounting technique had a great influence on the contents of the painting.  Thus, handscrolls were particularly well suited for narrative paintings while album leaves was often chosen for small, intimate scenes.

The present selection of paintings demonstrates the historical development of Chinese painting and includes works of all three mounting formats.