清明上河圖
Along the River During
the Qingming Festival

The painting "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" (Qingming Shanghe Tu 清明上河圖) is by Zhang Zeduan (張擇端 1085–1145). It is among the most famous Chinese paintings and has repeatedly been copied and imitated. The painting portrays the daily life of people and the landscape of the city of Bianjing (now Kaifeng) during the Qingming festival. The original painting, now in the Museum of the Forbidden City (Beijing), is 25.2x528.7 cm. The artist used the technique of scattered perspective mapping to paint such a wide panorama. The painting is well documented on internet, for example a wikipedia page and a video.

The present scroll is a reproduction of the fairly faithful copy made by Zhao Mengfu (趙孟頫 1254–1322). It differs slightly from the original. It is preceded by the title in seal script and the inscription "Hanlin imperial academy member Zhao Mengfu" (翰林學士 趙孟頫), there is a running text above, and a colophon at the end. The size, including the text above and at both ends, is 28x390 cm. Compared to the original, the perspective on this copy is indeed squeezed horizontally. It is painted on silk glued on paper or parchment, yellowed with age, clumsily cut around the edges and folded concertina-style within two silk-covered rigid covers. It was bought in Chengdu in 2006.

Click on the images below to access the painting, the text above it and the colophon.

Scroll

Text above the painting

Colophon

One reason why there are so many copies of the Zhao Mengfu painting available, even though it might no longer exist, is that Suzhou (near Shanghai) had a tradition of copying or forging famous paintings for a living, starting during the reign of emperor Wanli (1563-1620), until the end of the Qing dynasty. Copies of some paintings then spread to all parts of China.
(Information retrieved from Guāngxù yuánbǎo on June 7, 2017)

A rather different (and much longer) version of the Qingming Festival scroll was produced in 1737 at the request of the Qianlong emperor. The 11-meter scroll is shown on the same Wikipedia page as the original. In 1751, the Qianlong emperor commissioned another painting in the same style depicting life in Suzhou. This 12-meter long scroll, entitled 姑蘇繁華圖 (Gūsū Fánhuá Tú, Prosperous Suzhou) is described in this Wikipedia page.