Hand scroll: Riverbank scene at the Qingming festival, copy after Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145)

The Qingming Festival is celebrated every year in early April and combines commemoration of the dead with the first sewing of seeds. In his picture “Along the River during the Qingming Festival”, the landscape painter Zhang Zeduan created a vivid depiction of the celebrations in Kaifeng, the capital during the Song Dynasty (960–1279). Copies were constantly produced over the centuries, becoming further and further removed from the original. The picture leads the observer from the paddy fields before the city, along the river and the main street with richly detailed fair scenes, to the emperor’s palace, curtained with clouds.