Purchased for the Met's collection in 1981 as part of the Edward Elliott Family Collection, with funding from the Dillon Fund.
I picked this album by Yun Shouping (1633–1690) because it's actually one of his earliest firmly dated works, made in 1667, so I could give a real year instead of guessing. It's a set of ten small landscape paintings, not flowers, which shows a side of Yun that people don't always talk about — before he became known as the great flower painter, he was already a serious landscape artist. Some leaves are big, monumental mountain scenes inspired by the Yuan dynasty master Wang Meng, while others are much quieter, close-up studies of a single tree or rock, in the style of an even earlier painter, Cao Zhibo. What struck me is how careful and controlled the brushwork is — the Met's own description says the fine, precise lines and simple compositions reflect Yun's reserved, principled personality. Even though this isn't one of his famous "boneless" flower pieces, the same delicacy and restraint you see in his flower paintings shows up here too, just applied to mountains and trees instead of petals. Yun was close friends with the painter Wang Hui, and it's said he actually admired Wang's landscape skills so much that he decided to focus more on flowers himself — so in a way, this album is a rare look at the landscape painter he could have been. It's a small, quiet work, but I think it says a lot about his range as an artist early in his career.
This artwork captures a poignant intersection of temporal beauty and psychological depth. The composition relies on dramatic contrast and careful handling of light to direct the viewer’s eye toward the subject's emotional expression. Beyond its formal technical execution, the piece reflects broader themes of human vulnerability, social status, and the passage of time. The painterly detail on the support creates a tangible connection between the viewer and the subject, evoking a quiet, reflective atmosphere that lingers long after viewing
