This short landscape scroll is one of the most beautiful paintings in the Frankfurt collection and a wonderful example of exquisite 19th-century literati painting. The aim is not to depict a real landscape, but to offer a new interpretation of traditional compositions and forms with a high aesthetic quality of drawing. Countless small mounds of earth or rocks, so-called 'alum heads' (fantou), connect the individual large mountain forms like rubble and are in turn separated from one another by densely placed 'moss points' (taidian) and plastically modeled. These densely placed dots are an essential element in the landscape paintings of the literati painters. They give the picture structure and rhythm. The almost abstract aesthetic of the picture is further emphasized by the two-dimensional depiction of the trees, whose trunks and branches look like veins in the mass of foliage.
The models of Qian Du, who came from a wealthy family in Hangzhou, are the great masters of literati painting of the Ming Dynasty, Wen Zhengming (1470–1559) and Dong Qichang (1555–1636).