Along the River During the Qingming Festival

Timeline

1. c. 1100–1125Dongjing Kaifeng Prefecture · HenanZhang Zeduan painted the horizontal scroll in the Hanlin Academy style, moving from suburban fields over the Rainbow Bridge on the Bian River into the city gates and market streets. The scene focuses on crowds, grain barges, and shop stalls during the Qingming season, later regarded as a visual specimen of the Northern Song capital's commodity economy and urban life.
2. 1127–1201Kaifeng to the northern imperial collections · ChinaIn 1127 Dongjing fell and the scroll dispersed along with Northern Song cultural relics. Colophons from the Southern Song onward show it was already regarded as a memory of the former capital; from Jin and Yuan through Ming, the scroll changed hands between court and elites, forming a connoisseurship tradition related to the authenticity of the original.
3. 1736Beijing · BeijingThe Qing court authenticated the scroll as Zhang Zeduan's original and inscribed poems on it repeatedly. After entering the Palace Museum collection in the 20th century, it became the single most frequently cited work in Chinese painting history and urban history research, and must be distinguished from the many Ming and Qing copies.