Page 76 - Japanese Art Nov 9 2017 London

126 * 126

ARTIST UNKNOWN 127
Travellers and Revellers in a Spring Landscape For details of the charges payable in addition to the final Hammer Price of each Lot
Edo period (1615-1868), 18th century please refer to paragraphs 7 & 8 of the Notice to Bidders at the back of the catalogue.
Makimono (hand scroll), ink and colour on paper
flecked with gold paint, depicting a group of
travellers passing through a niomon (temple
gateway with guardian deities) into a mountainous
spring landscape with pines and cherry trees
where two picnic parties, fenced off with nomaku
(outdoor curtains), are in progress; spectators and
participants in an outdoor dance performance;
a scene outside a chaya (teahouse) with parents
and children sheltered by large umbrellas and
holding gold fans; and passengers aboard
pleasure boats on one of which a firework
display has just started; with a wood storage box
inscribed Shiki yuen (Parties in four seasons)
and silk brocade wrapper.
29.2cm x 776.5cm (11½in x 305¾in). (3).

£4,000 - 5,000
JPY590,000 - 740,000
US$5,300 - 6,600

PAINTED SCREENS
Various Properties

127TP
ARTIST UNKNOWN
A Six-panel Landscape Screen
Momoyama (1573-1615) or Edo (1615-1868)
period, 16th/17th century
Ink and slight colour on paper, the left-hand of
a pair of screens of the four seasons, depicting
spring and winter: a Chinese landscape with
snow-covered, pine-clad peaks, palatial buildings,
pagodas, low islands, willow trees, boats and small
figures. 171cm x 406cm (67¼in x 159 7/8in).

£5,000 - 8,000
JPY740,000 - 1,200,000
US$6,600 - 11,000

Provenance
Purchased by the current owner
from John Harding (Tokyo Gallery) in 1996.

Exhibited and Published
Tokyo Gallery, Japanese Painting from the
15th to 19th Century, London, 1976, cat. no.83.

This screen is painted in a version of the Chinese-
inspired landscape style pioneered by Sesshu
Toyo (1420-1506) as revived and expanded to
folding-screen format by a number of sixteenth-
century painters including Unkoku Togan
(1547-1618) who was given permission to live
in a temple which had once housed Sesshu’s
studio and modelled his style upon that of his
great predecessor. The best known pair of ink
landscape screens by Togan is in Tokyo National
Museum and exhibits some similarities to the
present lot, but the looser brushwork and more
atmospheric use of blank space may reflect the
influence of the Kano academy, which exercised
growing influence in both Kyoto and Edo during
the 17th century.

74 | BONHAMS