Horses and Grooms Crossing a River

Zhao Mengfu, a descendant of the Song (960-1279) royal family, was a multitalented artist who lived during the early Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) and is regarded as the leading painter and calligrapher of his time. He was skillful in a wide range of subject matter, such as landscape, figure, horse, and bird-and-flower painting. According to his own statement, Zhao learned to draw horses at a relatively young age and believed that his paintings were able to capture the true inner nature of a horse.

In this short handscroll, Zhao depicts three grooms and fifteen horses in various postures crossing a river. By combining the colorful realism of the Tang dynasty (618-907) with the ink line drawing of the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) literati tradition, Zhao Mengfu established a new direction for his fellow painters during the transitional years of the late thirteenth century. While the painting does not exhibit the superb skill and fluency of the artist's genuine works, it is probably a close copy of an original composition by Zhao and may have been executed by one of his more accomplished followers.