Shen Zhou

Shen Zhou was a Chinese painter, poet, writer and calligrapher of the Ming dynasty. He was born in Suzhou in 1427 and died in 1509.

His courtesy names were Qinan and Shitian. He lived in the period after the Ming had taken power from the Yuan. His family worked closely with the government and kept its wealth. Shen Zhou later retired and lived as a recluse, giving most of his time to painting and to the care of his widowed mother.

He is associated with the Wu School of painting. Museums that hold his work include the Palace Museum, the National Palace Museum, the Shanghai Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Seattle Art Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Princeton Art Museum, the Guimet Museum and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Silent fisherman in an autumn wood, the painting shown here, is a hanging scroll dated 1475, in ink and color on paper, made during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). It is also known as Silent Angler in an Autumn Wood. Its subject is a fisherman in a wood in autumn. The image measures 60 by 24 3/4 inches (152.4 by 62.9 centimeters); with its mounting the scroll measures 107 by 32 1/8 inches (271.8 by 81.6 centimeters).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the scroll in 1988 as a bequest of John M. Crawford Jr. It is part of the museum’s Asian Art collection.