Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Beauties and Heroes: Legends and Stories in Chinese Art

(from 21st Jan until 15th Jul 2012)

Explore paintings, prints and papercuts depicting legendary figures from Chinese folklore.

Detail of Heroes from The Water Margin, by Shi Dawei, Shanghai, 2003 (Museum No: EA2007.194)
Painted Skinfront

© the artist's estate

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Painted Skin

  • loan

  • Description

    This figure is a demoness who disguises herself as a pretty teenage girl by painting her flayed skin in bright colours. In the story, the scholar Mr Wang admires her beauty and lets her stay in his studio. But at night, the demoness breaks into Wang’s bedroom and eats his heart in front of his wife.

    Ding Cong, also known as Xiao Ding, was a cartoonist and illustrator from Shanghai. In the 1930s and 1940s, he was famous for his paintings about freedom and democracy, subjects to which he was able to return only in 1979. It is likely this painting is a satirical reference to Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing as the artist Ding Cong had suffered so much during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

  • Details

    show all
    Associated place
    Asia › China › Hebei province › Beijing (place of creation)
    Date
    October 1979
    Artist/maker
    Ding Cong (1916 - 2009) (artist)
    Ding Cong (1916 - 2009) (calligrapher)
    Associated people
    Khoan Sullivan (1919 - 2003) (recipient)
    Michael Sullivan (1916 - 2013) (recipient)
    Material and technique
    ink and colour on paper
    Dimensions
    frame 43.3 x 36 x 3.8 cm (height x width x depth)
    painting 29.8 x 20.3 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    processed material › paper
    Technique index
    decorated › painted,
    painted,
    covered › coated › painted,
    marked › painted,
    drawn (image) › line drawing › brush drawing
    Object type index
    visual representation › painting,
    visual representation › calligraphy
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    On loan from the Khoan and Michael Sullivan Collection.
    Accession no.
    LI1109.9

  • Further reading

    Sullivan, Michael, Modern Chinese Art: The Khoan and Michael Sullivan Collection, revised edn (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2009), no. 97 on p. 288, illus. p. 288 fig. 97

Glossary

Ding

  • Ding

    A Chinese bronze tripod ritual cooking vessel. Also a type of white porcelain from Northern China.

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Notice

Objects from past exhibitions may have now returned to our stores or a lender. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so please contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.

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