Page 239 - JAPAN THE SHAPING OFDAIMYO CULTURE 1185-1868

144
144 Western dogs Mitani Tôshuku (1577-1654), a student of
Sakai Hôitsu (1761-1828) Unkoku Tôgan (1547-1618). The Tôshuku
votive plaque, ink, color and gold leaf scrolls are now lost, but an 1816 copy by a
on wood Kano school painter now in the Tokyo Na-
x l
5 8 x
118.5 $-7 (46 / sSVz) tional Museum confirms the connection.
Edo period, 1814 In addition, Hoitsu's close friend Tani
Bunchô (1763-1840) reproduced one of the
Sójiji (Nishiarai Daishi), Tokyo two Tôshuku scrolls in his book Honchd
This ema (votive plaque) of two Western gasan (published around 1810), also noting
dogs is signed at the lower right, Painted that Tóshuku's paintings were at the
by Hôitsu Kishin, followed by a round re- Shóshóin of the Tsurugaoka Hachimangü
lief seal, Bunsen. Along the left edge is in Kamakura. It is likely that Hôitsu
written, An auspicious day in the third copied the works at the Shóshóin and used
month of the eleventh year ofBunka; donor them for this votive plaque.
Yaoya Zenshird, recording that this plaque In the early seventeenth century, Eu-
was offered to the temple in 1814 by Zen- ropeans probably brought the custom of
shirô, master of Yaozen, the renowned res- walking a dog with a collar and leash to
taurant then in the Asakusa area of Edo Japan. This sparked the curiosity of the
(present-day Tokyo). Hôitsu often went to Japanese, and the Western dog became a
Yaozen and was a good friend of Zenshiró, frequent motif in genre works such as nan-
who was born in the year of the dog. Ac- ban (southern barbarian) screens (cat. 114).
cording to the zodiacal cycle, 1814 was the Tôshuku's paintings of Western dogs, and
year of the dog, and to commemorate it, others like them, were made against this
Zenshiró probably commissioned Hôitsu historical background. In the Sójiji plaque
to paint this plaque. Another work by the dogs have been placed in an abstracted
Hôitsu, Pair of dogs, was transmitted in the space. The chain on the larger dog has
restaurant. been elongated to the edge of the plaque,
The dogs in this work were derived suggesting that the dogs' owner stands
from those in a pair of hanging scrolls by outside the painting space. SY

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