Page 102 - japanese and korean art Utterberg Collection Christie's March 22 2022

31
SAKAI HOITSU (1761-1829)
Benzaiten
Sealed Hoitsu shi
Hanging scroll; ink, color, gold and silver on silk
32Ω x 14¬ in. (82.6 x 37.1 cm.)
With wood box authentication by Tanaka Hoji (1812-1885)
and Sakai Doitsu (1845-1913)
$15,000-25,000

Hoitsu was a versatile artist and is best known for his revival
of the art of Ogata Korin (1658–1716), but he painted a
number of full-color Buddhist images. At the age of thirty-
six, he took Buddhist vows at the temple Tsukiji Hongan-ji
in Edo (modern Tokyo), becoming a lay priest. Hoitsu was
a devotee of the goddess Benzaiten and apparently based
this painting on an image in the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu
Srhrine in Kamakura. For his very similar painting of
Willow-Branch Kannon in ink, color and gold leaf on silk, also
in shades of green and blue, in The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York (2019.419.2), see Richard Fishbein,
“Collecting Kannon,” Impressions 35 (2014), pp. 176–79
(www.japaneseartsoc.org).

Sakai Hoitsu (1761–1828). Willow-Branch Kannon. Japan. Edo
period, Circa 1810. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, Fishbein-Bender Collection, Gift of T. Richard Fishbein
and Estelle P. Bender, accession number 2019.419.2