Page 40 - mar 21 Japanese and korean art Bonhams

2083 (accompanying certificates)

2083
IKKYU SOJUN 一休宗純 (1394-1481) Published
Wild Orchids, Rock, and Bamboo, with Calligraphy Tokyo Art Club 東京美術倶楽部, Kataoka-ke shozohin rakusatsu
Muromachi period (1333-1573), 15th century takane-hyo 片岡家所蔵品落札高値表 (Prices [Above 300 Yen]
Kakejiku (hanging scroll), ink on paper; inscribed at right: Daito Shuho Realized at the Sale of the Kataoka Family Collection), auction report,
Kokushi Goyo Ryuho monkyaku Tokai Ikkyu-ro no shi tomo ni ga October 11, 1926, no. 14 (1,050 yen)
ippitsu 大燈宗峯國師五葉龍寶門客東海一休老納詩与畫一筆 (Old Michael R. Cunningham, Ink Paintings and Ash-Glazed Ceramics:
Man Tokai Ikkyu, guest of Daito Shuho Kokushi Goyo Ryuho, offered Medieval Calligraphy, Painting, and Ceramic Art from Japan and
this poem and painting from the same brush); Inscribed above with Korea, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland OH: The Cleveland Museum
a Chinese poem: 屈平佩惠世傳芳 楚国詞人吟奥長 湘水不須 of Art, March 19-May 28, 2000, cat. no. 3, pp.25-27
言逆耳 汨羅江上送春香 (The fragrance of Qu’s orchid passes
from generation to generation / the verses chanted by this poet of Famed for his radical approach to Zen and his superficially dissolute
Chu were wide and deep / the waters of the Xiang River ignored his lifestyle, Ikkyu Sojun was one of the most important religious
words and blocked its ears to them / but they spread the scent of leaders of Japan’s later middle ages. Although better known for
spring over the waters of Miluo) his voluminous and eccentric Chinese poetry, he painted a small
number of expressive, gestural scrolls executed in ink on paper
With fitted lacquered-wood tomobako storage box dated Genbun that feature plant forms, usually wild orchids, and appear to have
gannen tatsu shichigatsu mikka 元文元年辰七月三日 (Third day been inspired by earlier Zen priest-artists such as Gyokuen Bonpo
of the seventh month of 1736) and inscribed to the effect that (1349-after 1420) who produced more than 20 such compositions;
the painting has a certificate by the Daitokuji abbot Gyokushu 玉 see Anne Nishimura Morse and others, Arts of Japan, Boston: MFA
舟 (1599-1668); the documents accompanying this lot include the Publications, 2008, p. 64. Like Bonpo, Ikkyu chose the orchid as his
certificate by Gyokushu; another certificate with a label inscribed subject because it symbolized the upright Chinese scholar alienated
by Takuan Soho 沢庵宗彭 (1573-1645), also a Daitokuji abbot; an from the corruption of power.
annotated copy of the Chinese poem, with glosses in Japanese; and
a copy of the Tokyo Art Club price list of 1926 (see below) The present lot is closely related to the right-hand half of a pair of
33 1/4in x 15 1/4in (84.4 x 38.7cm) scrolls in the Century Cultural Foundation, Tokyo which has a similar
composition and is inscribed with the same poem except for some
US$150,000 - 250,000 differences in the first line; see http://www.ccf.or.jp/jp/03museum/
detail.html?SelectExsID=698. Ikkyu’s poem relates to the great early
Provenance Chinese poet Qu Yuan from the state of Chu in southern China.
Following his unjust banishment from both court and state, Qu
Kataoka Family Collection, until 1926 committed suicide by throwing himself in the Miluo River, a tributuary
Takashi Yanagi, Kyoto of the Xiang River on the eastern bank of Lake Dongting. As noted
The Estate of George Gund III (1937-2013), from 1992 by Michael Cunningham, Ikkyu here likens Qu’s understated “moral
character to that of the scent of the wild orchid, which goes largely
unnoticed in the world.”
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