Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains

Huang Gongwang (1269–1354) began painting at age 50 and spent his last years wandering the Fuchun River valley south of Hangzhou. Between 1348 and 1350, he distilled this experience into a single handscroll: a continuous journey through misty peaks, gentle riverbanks, fishermen's huts, and groves of pine and bamboo. The painting became the most treasured work in Chinese art history, collected by emperor after emperor. In 1650, its owner — a dying collector named Wu Hongyu — ordered it burned as a funeral offering. His nephew snatched it from the flames, but not before it broke in two. The shorter piece ('Remaining Mountain') is now in Zhejiang Provincial Museum; the longer piece ('Master Wuyong Scroll') is in Taipei's National Palace Museum. In 2011, a historic joint exhibition briefly reunited the two halves for the first time in 361 years.