Tai Sung began to paint as the student of Han Huang. His subject-matter included agricultural scenes, but he was particularly famous as a painter of water-buffalo. His younger brother Tai I also earned fame for his paintings of buffalo.Tai Sung is the most famous T'ang Dynasty painter of buffalo. In this painting a buffalo cow lies on the ground facing her calf, which wanders as it gazes. To one side of the painting is the inscription "Cow and Calf by Tai Sung", above which is a seal of the Sung Emperor Kao-tsung (r. 1127-1162), indicating that characters were probably written by him.