Five Horses (五馬圖, Wu Ma Tu)

In 1088, at the invitation of his close friend Su Shi, the Northern Song scholar-official and painter Li Gonglin picked up his brush to immortalize five tribute horses sent from the Western Regions to the imperial court, in a work that came to be known as Five Horses (五馬圖), rendered in ink with light color on paper. The scroll unfolds like a quiet procession across five separate scenes, each horse led forward by its own groom, drawn in Li Gonglin's signature baimiao technique—pure, flowing line without color or shading—so that the muscle, weight, and temperament of each animal seem to breathe through the simplicity of the strokes alone. Behind four of the five horses, the celebrated calligrapher Huang Tingjian added brief notations recording each animal's name, place of origin, age, and height, identifying them as Fengtou Cong, Jinbo Cong, Haotou Chi, and Zhaoye Bai; the fifth horse, its label lost, is thought to be Manchuan Hua. Li Gonglin was no mere craftsman but a member of the era's most brilliant literary circle, moving among figures like Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, and Mi Fu, and this scholarly companionship shaped his belief that painting was an intellectual pursuit rather than a trade. The scroll spent centuries in the imperial collections of successive Chinese dynasties before leaving the country amid the collapse of the Qing dynasty in the 1920s, passing into private hands in Japan. It was exhibited once in 1928, then disappeared from view entirely and was long presumed destroyed during the Second World War—until it resurfaced unexpectedly in a 2019 Tokyo National Museum exhibition, after which it was donated to the museum for permanent preservation.