The Qingming Festival By the Riverside was done by Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) painter Zhang Zeduan.

The Qingming Festival By the Riverside is a silk scroll, stretching 528 cm long and 24.8 cm wide. The backdrop is the Bian River winding through the then capital Bianjing, today’s Kaifeng in C. China’s Henan Province. It depicts a panoramic scene of Bianjing during the Qingming Festival, a festival for mourning the dead. During that time, many people went to the Qingming Festival street fairs.

The painting is rich in content, depicting hundreds of human figures, some livestock, rooms and pavilions, trees, boats, carriages, and sedan chairs. All the figures and detailed scenes are well arranged in the painting, creating an effect of a bustling complexity that still remains in perfect order.

The painting can be divided into three parts: the suburban scene in the early spring, the noisy Bian River and the busy city streets.