Page 81 - japanese and korean art Utterberg Collection Christie's March 22 2022

Bamboo, pine and plum are auspicious emblems of the New Year,
while paired cranes and mandarin ducks, as well as the countless
other paired birds seen here—egrets, geese, pheasants among
others—suggest this festive, sumptuous work in polychrome and
gold might have been a wedding commission. The feathered flock
conveys a joyous cacophony dear to the hearts of bird watchers.
Cranes mate for life and thus symbolize happy marriage and blissful
family life, which is why they were more commonly represented
on wedding garments and dowry objects than any other animal
motif. Shown here are a pair of familiar Manchurian cranes (Grus
japonensis), which have tall, stately, white-feathered bodies with
a crest of red feathers. The family theme is strengthened by the
charming detail of a nest with baby chicks in the hollow knot of
the pine tree; the chicks open their beaks to receive delivery of a
tasty worm.

Ishida Yutei’s work is rare. Screens by this artist featuring a
multitude of cranes are in the John C. Weber Collection, New
York (fig.1), and the Mary Griggs Burke Collection in the
Minneapolis Institute of Art (2015.79.73.1, 2). A third pair of
screens, in the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, includes
forty-six cranes. Yutei was a Kyoto artist who trained in the
traditional Kano school methods with Tsuruzawa Tangei (1688–
1769). Here, he draws on the monumentality and stylization
associated with Kano painting—the massive pine tree—but his
interest in naturalism presages the work of his foremost student,
Maruyama Okyo (1733–1795), the famous and influential champion
of Western-influenced naturalism in Japan during the 18th century.

Yutei received commissions from the imperial court and around
the year 1767 was awarded the honorary title of Bridge of the Law
(hokkyo), as seen in the signature on these screens.

Ishida Yutei, Flock of Cranes, 1764-84.
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color
gold and gold leaf on paper. John C. Weber
Collection. Photo: John Bigelow Taylor