Orchid Pavilion Gathering

1777

Orchid Pavilion Gathering, 1777. Soga Shōhaku (Japanese, 1730–1781). Hanging scroll; ink on silk; painting: 122.7 x 55.7 cm (48 5/16 x 21 15/16 in.); mounted: 197.4 x 58.8 cm (77 11/16 x 23 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1979.53 This painting depicts a famous gathering that took place in China in AD 353 to celebrate the Spring Purification Festival, also known as the Double Third Festival, as it takes place on the third day of the third lunar month. The host invited everyone to the Orchid Pavilion to compose poetry and drink wine. Guests floated wine cups down a nearby creek, and where they landed, people had to drink the wine and compose a poem. The Buddhist temple Bairinji in Kurume City, Fukuoka prefecture, Japan, and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, own compositions by the same artist on the same theme.