Flowers and insects

Maker(s)
Artist: Tosa school
Historical period(s)
Edo period, 1615-1868
School
Tosa
Medium
Ink, color and gold on paper
Dimensions
H x W (.128): 155 x 361.1 cm (61 x 142 3/16 in) H x W (.129): 155 x 361.9 cm (61 x 142 1/2 in)
Geography
Japan
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art
Accession Number
F1907.128-129
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Painting
Type

Screens (six-panel)

Keywords
Edo period (1615 - 1868), flower, insect, Japan
Provenance

To 1907
Unidentified owner, Tokyo, Japan, to 1907 [1]

From 1907 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased in Tokyo, Japan, from an unidentified owner in 1907 [2]

From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

Notes:

[1] See Original Screen List, S.I. 134, pg. 36, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

[2] See note 1.

[3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919

Label

In these screens flower beds stretch in narrow, undulating bands across a ground of gold leaf unadorned except for hovering insects.  The sparse composition echoes in much larger scale an established style of floral under-painting rendered on paper intended for use in handscrolls of imperial poetry anthologies, on which a calligrapher would inscribe the poems in the empty spaces.  The paintings are probably the work of an unidentified artist of the Tosa school of court painters, based in Kyoto.

Collection Area(s)
Japanese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

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