Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Liu Guandao
Yuan court painter from Zhongshan who won office with a portrait of the crown prince and painted Khubilai Khan Hunting
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Zi Zhongxian
Liu Guandao, courtesy name Zhongxian, came from Zhongshan (modern Dingzhou, Hebei) and served the Yuan court. The Tuhui baojian records that in 1279 he painted a portrait of the crown prince Zhenjin (later honoured as Yuzong) that pleased the court, and was made a commissioner of the Imperial Wardrobe Office. He painted Buddhist and Daoist figures as well as animals, flowers, bamboo and landscape, drawing on many earlier masters. His hanging scroll Khubilai Khan Hunting, signed by him as wardrobe commissioner and dated the second month of 1280, shows the emperor and his party on the steppe and is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei; the handscroll Whiling Away the Summer in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art also bears his name.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active late 13th century under Khubilai