Admonitions Scroll

In the Admonitions Scroll, painted figures accompany a text about conduct at court. The text was written by Zhang Hua, a Chinese poet and official. Scenes turn its advice into relationships between people, with gestures and spacing carrying part of the story. Nine of the original twelve scenes survive. The painting is dated to the fifth to seventh centuries AD and belongs to the tradition associated with Gu Kaizhi. That association does not give us a securely identified artist for the surviving work. The age of the text, the painterly tradition and the date of this particular scroll are separate parts of its history. The Museum bought it from Captain C. Johnson in 1903. The original is currently off display. A reproduction or an image in a book can help you follow the scenes. In an image, attend to how the people stand or sit in relation to one another. Their placement carries much of the advice alongside the text.