Page 37 - mar 21 Japanese and korean art Bonhams

2077
SCHOOL OF IWASA MATABEI
Fashionable youth at leisure Iwasa Matabei (1578-1650) has long been regarded as a vital link
Edo period (1615-1868) or Meiji era (1868-1912), 19th century between the long-established Tosa tradition of highly-colored, some-
A two-panel folding screen decorated in ink, lavish color, gesso, gold, times miniaturist, figural narrative painting and the earliest paintings
and gold leaf on paper with silk surround and lacquered-wood frame, in the Ukiyo-e style, mainly associated today with woodblock prints;
depicting a group of two young dandies and beauties enjoying music at one time even such early Ukiyo-e painting masterpieces as the
beneath a blossoming cherry tree and flowering peonies before a Hikone Screens were conventionally, but mistakenly, attributed
brush fence in gold moriage, the oversized blossoms raised in relief, to him. While the title of “founder of Ukiyo-e” is nowadays more
the full moon an applied gilt-metal disc, the figures’ robes decorated usually and accurately accorded to Hishikawa Moronobu (d.1694),
with floral and geometric designs, phoenixes and fruiting grape vines Matabei is still greatly admired for a small group of works that can be
in the manner of an ink painting definitively attributed to his hand, in particular long narrative scrolls
61 1/4 x 66in (155.5 x 167.6cm) of historical events, portraits of classical poets, and lively panoramas
of everyday life in and around Kyoto; his painting is characterized
US$10,000 - 15,000 by figures with large heads and delicately drawn features, depicted
in bright colors. The present lot, likely dating from two centuries or
more after Matabei’s death, brilliantly recaptures the spirit of seven-
teenth-century screen genre painting.

FINE JAPANESE AND KOREAN ART | 35