Page 39 - Sotheby's Arcadian beauty Song Pottery Oct. 3, 2018

shichao [Verse collection from the Pearl Lake Cottage], Man Tessai, Hyakuren, at the age of 86,” suggesting that the
Zhuhucaotang biji [Notes from the Pearl Lake Cottage] and handscroll can be dated to 1921.
Yingzhou bitan [Notes from the Boat to the Fairy Isles]. He
Tomioka Tessai (originally named Hyakuren, zi Muken and
also edited an enormous 200-volume work on the study of
sobriquet Yuken, later known as Tetsugai or Tetsu Dojin)
Mencius, Qijing Mengzi kaowen bing buyi, as well as several
was born and raised in Kyoto, where he also spent most of
anthologies of contemporary regional poets. Zhuhucaotang
his adult life. Tessai received a literary education focusing
(Pearl Lake Cottage), a study and library located on the Ruan
on Kokugaku (national study), Buddhism, Confucianism,
family estate (now within Yangzhou city) was probably of
especially the school of Wang Yangming. In the 1860s, during
special importance to Ruan Heng, who owned a related seal
the Meiji Restoration, he supported the transition from the
and named his collection of works after the cottage. For more
shoganate to imperial rule. After the Restoration in 1868, in
information on the cottage, see Yangzhou fu zhi [Gazeteer of
order to learn about local customs, geography and history,
Yangzhou Prefecture], vol. 31, p. 44.
he travelled extensively throughout Japan and served as
The calf later entered the collection of a renowned Japanese chief priest at various Shinto shrines. Tessai studied painting
scholar and painter from Kyoto, Tomioka Tessai (1837- since the age of 19, but only became a painter after his
1924), who named the present piece ‘Iron Ox’. Tessai’s love return to Kyoto in 1881, at the age of 44. Regarded as the
of the object is evident in his handscroll which comprises of last great Japanese Nanga ‘Southern-style’ painter, Tessai
a painting of the piece and an essay entitled Record of the demonstrated in his works a distinct individual style which
Ancient Iron Ox. According to the essay, Tessai first saw the hints at the Southern Song literary tradition, the influence of
present piece “fifty years earlier” in the late 1860s in Kyoto, Ming and Qing scholarly paintings, as well as inspiration from
and he often reminisced about the encounter afterwards. He nature. His paintings and calligraphy, treasured in Japan,
mentioned various owners before him, who greatly admired its are held in many museums, including the Tessai Museum in
rare elegance and treasured it despite its rustic appearance. Takarazuka.
The essay ends with one of his seals and his signature “Old