In the Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven (Mutianzi zhuan, ca. 475–221 BCE) — considered the oldest extant travelogue in Chinese literature — the ruler journeys to the mythical Kunlun mountains, his chariot drawn by eight faithful horses toward the Queen Mother of the West. On arrival he releases the steeds into a paradisiac meadow, payment for carrying him to the land of eternal life.

The trope became immortal in its own right, turning up on jade snuff bottles, silk sleeve bands, seal-paste vessels, and Qing porcelain plates. For painters, the eight horses offered a showcase: unlike the placid animals of stable-groom portraits, these gallop, gambol, and leap in celebration of their liberty.

The Met’s silk scroll, attributed to Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322) after a fourth-century original by Shi Daoshi, is the exemplar. Its horses have cocked tails, enviable curls, and long, inordinately flabby necks; they chomp at the air and stare down the viewer with jaundiced, oddly piercing eyes.

The context that makes the scroll legible:

  • Horse judging was elevated to a science in ancient China when the tamer Bole pioneered xiangma, horse physiognomy.
  • The Classic of Horse Physiognomy, a fragmentary text found near Mawangdui, instructs practitioners down to the smallest detail — a fine specimen’s eyes should resemble “a moon coming out above . . . and not yet bright.”
  • Frequent comparisons to mountains, rivers, and heavenly phenomena gave the animals’ bodies cosmological significance, art historian Robert E. Harrist Jr. argues: correct proportions indicated a correct balance of yin, yang, and other fundamental forces.
  • Xiangma texts tied a steed’s physical qualities to its owner’s fate. If a horse’s shoulder is four cun long, “the rider can regulate all under heaven.”
  • Horses doubled as barely coded political commentary — powerful, well-groomed animals signaled good governance and harmony in affairs of state. The emaciated horse, by contrast, was a known metaphor for imperial decline.

So what to make of a scroll whose animals embody not magisterial equilibrium but a rambunctious energetic overflow? Erica X Eisen leaves the question open: was Zhao mounting a political rebuke by defying physiognomic norms, or was he signaling that xiangma’s rigid strictures simply could not capture the kind of anarchic joy an artistic imagination can perceive?