Page 97 - japanese and korean art Utterberg Collection Christie's March 22 2022

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ITO JAKUCHU (1716-1800) ITO JAKUCHU (1716-1800)
Leaping Carp Takuhatsu (Mendicant Priests)
Sealed To Jokin in, Jakuchu koji and senga zeppitsu Signed Beito-o gyonen nanaju nana sai ga, sealed Fuji jjokin in
Hanging scroll; ink on paper and Jakucu koji
43æ x 17º in. (111.1 x 43.8 cm.) Hanging scroll; ink on paper
45¡ x 12 in. (115.3 x 30.5 cm.)
$40,000-60,000
$30,000-40,000
EXHIBITED:
"Jakuchu no Kyoto Kyoto no Jakuchu: seitan 300 nen" Jakuchu was the head of a wholesale shop in the
(Jakuchu's Kyoto, Kyoto's Jakuchu: 300th anniversary), greengrocers district of Kyoto for seventeen years, but he
Kyoto City Museum of Art, Kyoto, 4 October-4
December, 2016 was by nature introverted and reclusive. In his thirties he
became interested in Zen Buddhism, and the experience
shaped his subsequent life. A close friend was the chief
abbot of Shokokuji, one of the five great Zen temples of
Kyoto. Around 1760, when Jakuchu was at the peak of
his powers, he was working on his masterpiece, the set of
thirty large, colorful hanging scrolls known as Doshiku
sai-e (Colorful Realm of Living Beings), which he
presented as a gift to Shokokuji. But at the same time he
was producing paintings that relied on expressive means
other than color.
There is another, very similar painting of mendicant
priests by Jakuchu, painted in 1795; see Tsuji Nobuo,
Jakuchu to Buson / Seitan sanbyakunen: onaidoshi no tensai-
eshi (Celebrating Two Contemporary Geniuses: Jakuchu
and Buson) (Tokyo: Suntory Museum of Art and Miho
Museum, 2015), no. 219.