A small corner of the palace garden is shown, where roses and irises bloom into flower.  A pair of red-crested Manchurian cranes are found here.  To the rear, one stands alone with neck retracted.  The crane in front turns her head with a backward glance at the two young fledgling cranes behind.  The two young birds look back up at their mother, their bodies covered with newly formed feathers.  Lang Shih-ning uses colors that are bright and entrancing, and his subjects are described in extremely life-like fashion.  In this manner he synthesizes Chinese and Western methods of painting.

Emperor Chien-lung wrote a poem entitled "The Fledging Cranes" that reads:

The young cranes are barely hatched from their shells,
Yet already their 'cloud-soaring' air is complete.
With lofty bearing they study their mother,
Not at all the manner of the wren.
They stand by the rocks and stream,
Though their thoughts are beyond the cloudy mists.
They laugh at the sparrow locked in his cage,
Vainly pecking as he waits for his feed.

As the poem matches this painting well, it has been suggested that Emperor Chien-lung composed it upon seeing this painting by Lang Shih-ning but for some reason failed to inscribe it upon the scroll.  The painting is signed, "Lang Shih-ning respectfully paints."  There is one seal: kung hua.

Lang Shih-ning (Giuseppe Castiglione, 1688 - 1766) was a native of Milan, Italy.  At the age of nineteen he entered the Jesuit Order, and in 1715 traveled to China where he served as a painter to the three courts of the Emperors Kang-hsi, Yung-cheng and Chien-lung.  Before he came to China, Lang Shih-ning already possessed considerable training as a Western style painter and architect.  Utilizing naturalistic Western techniques to capture the absolute likeness of his subject's form and spirit, Lang Shih-ning's paintings gained the admiration of the emperors.  A number of the painters who served the court were influenced by his style of painting.  Lang Shih-ning introduced Western techniques of modeling with light and shadow to traditional Chinese painting.  With bright and luxurious colors that capture the eye, Lang Shih-ning painted figures, flowers, birds, dogs and horses with equal skill and success.  A number of the Ching court's most important commemorative painting as well were produced under his direction.  As a missionary, Lang Shih-ning was greatly aided in his propagation of religious teachings by his proximity to Emperor Chien-lung, and his numerous contributions in this area should also be recognized.  Lang Shih-ning was born on the twenty-second day of the sixth month of the twenty-seventh year of the Kang-hsi reign (July 19, 1688); he died in Peking at the age of seventy-nine on the tenth day of the sixth month of the thirty-first year of the Chien-lung reign (July16, 1766).  After his death the Ching court awarded him the posthumous title of Vice Minister.