Ink and light colors.  Peach trees and slender bamboo grace the water's edge, their leaves in first greening.  Distant hills are vaguely discernable in the background.  The entire scene is pervaded by mists as migrant fowl frolic in the frozen streams.  The title is inscribed in the upper left corner, the calligraphy resembling that of the Emperor Ning-tsung (r.1195 - 1224), but is followed by the seal of the Empress Yang bearing the "Kun-kua" sign of the 64 hexagrams.  The artist's signature, Ma Lin, appears in the lower right.

Ma Lin (13th century) was the son of Ma Yuan and served in the imperial painting academy as a chih-hou attendant.  In painting landscapes and flowers he continued the family tradition.  Some said that Ma Yuan used to sign his son's name on his own works in order to promote him.  And yet the style of Ma Lin's sketches of nature differs clearly from that of his father and the two cannot easily be confounded.  For this reason Ma Lin retained his own distinctive place in the annals of Chinese painting history.  He was most active during the reign of the Sung Emperor Li-tsung (r.1225 - 1264).  His vital dates are not known.