How ink gives the horse volume
Look along the outline of the back and then towards the darker neck. The contour establishes a rounded body; quieter shifts of grey suggest its weight. The mane, eye and hooves bring darker accents into the paler animal.
The Met describes the combination of precise drawing and delicate ink shading as baihua, or white painting. It distinguishes this from the later term baimiao, white drawing, which denotes line drawing without shading. The distinction matters here because the modelling inside the outline contributes to the horse’s physical presence. [2]
An imperial horse, with a qualified attribution
The Met’s 2008 exhibition text identifies Night-Shining White as a favoured charger of Emperor Xuanzong, who ruled from 712 to 756. It describes Han Gan as a Tang horse painter concerned with both likeness and the animal’s spirit, and calls this work attributed to him. [2]
The Met collection record names Han Gan directly and dates the painting to about 750. [1] Mittler’s caption qualifies the attribution, as does Sullivan’s text. [3] [4] Hawks reports a scholarly assessment of it as an original Tang painting by Han Gan. [5]
In his 1961 book, Sullivan assigns all but the head, neck and forequarters to a later restorer. Hawks’s 2014 discussion cites the legs’ positioning as evidence of Han Gan’s observation. These accounts offer different assessments of the surviving image. [4] [5]
Why the painting has so many marks
Many seals and inscriptions belong to the work’s collecting history. The Met explains that later owners and appreciators added inscriptions and seals to the handscroll and its borders. Their marks record its transmission and the responses of later viewers. They are part of what the object has become over time. [2]
Shelley Drake Hawks describes a title inscription bearing the cipher of the Southern Tang ruler Li Yu. An adjacent inscription by Wu Yue comments that most works bearing that cipher are genuine. [5]
The horse image and the mounted scroll
The Met records an Image measurement of 30.8 cm high and 34 cm wide. Its dimensions summary gives the overall object with mounting as 35.4 cm high and 11.4 metres long. These labels distinguish different measured extents of the collection object. [1]
The Met also records an image including inscription 124.14 cm wide, and a separate Overall measurement about 6.06 metres wide. Hawks describes a six-metre handscroll. The record does not define the extent of that shorter Overall measurement; the 11.4-metre figure is explicitly labelled as including mounting. [1] [5]
Compare the tighter horse reproduction with the wider museum photograph below. The wider view includes adjoining writing and mounting above and below. Both photographs show only part of the mounted object.
These are partial photographs of the same object. Equal-height display boxes do not represent physical scale; each image retains its own proportions.
Tighter horse view
Horse and adjoining writing
Return to the horse
After looking at the writing and seals, return to the animal’s head. Compare the small dark marks around the eye and mouth with the broader pale body. Then follow the raised legs back towards the post. The painting rewards attention to changes of scale: a few fine marks describe expression, while larger curves describe bodily weight.
The collectors’ additions change the experience of that looking. You encounter a horse portrait surrounded by later additions. Mittler notes that these inscriptions and seals add their own ornamentation and meaning. The wider photograph makes that accumulation visible without requiring you to read every character. [3] [5]
Sullivan’s plate uses the older title Shining Light of the Night and the spelling Han Kan. It reproduces the same tethered horse and surrounding seals, under the then-current David collection ownership. [4]
Continue looking
The Met’s explanation uses Li Gonglin as an example of the later practice of line drawing without shading. Explore Li Gonglin to continue that comparison. [2]
Hawks discusses Zhao Mengfu’s study of Han Gan and Li Gonglin within the later history of horse painting. Explore Zhao Mengfu for another artist in that history. [5]
Common questions
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Who painted Night-Shining White?
The Met’s 2008 exhibition text describes the painting as attributed to Han Gan, a Tang dynasty horse painter. [2]
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Why are there red seals and writing?
The Met explains that later owners and appreciators added seals and inscriptions to the scroll and its borders. They record the work’s collecting history and responses to it. [2]
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How large is Night-Shining White?
The Met records an Image measurement as 30.8 cm high and 34 cm wide, and the overall object with mounting as 35.4 cm high and 11.4 metres long. A separate Overall measurement is about 6.06 metres wide, but its extent is not defined in the record. [1]