A Red Dressed Monk from the Western Regions, a Yuan Dynasty(1279.1368) painting scroll by Zhao Mengfu, ink and color on silk, 25cm×81.3cm.
Zhao Mengfu(1254.1322), a Yuan Dynasty painter and calligrapher, was good at poem, calligraphy and painting. He was skillful at drawing characters, horses, landscapes and flowers. He exerted far-reaching impacts on paintings of later generations.
This scroll, also known as Arhat Dressed in Red, was drawn in 1304, the eighth year of the Dade reign of the Yuan Dynasty. It depicts the scene that a monk from the Western Regions dressed in red kasaya holds out left palm and sits on a rock with moss, and over his head is a band of Buddha’s halo. It is a masterpiece of Zhao Mengfu’s figure paintings.