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A lengthy Chinese inscription inside the outer storage box, signed The scroll’s title, Kochukenkon 壷中乾坤 (The Universe in a Jar), refers
with the pseudonym Oson Rosho (“The Old Woodcutter of Warbler to a Chinese tradition that goes back ultimately to the fifth-century
Mountain,” so far unidentified), mentions a visit by the writer, in fall A.D. Chinese history Houhanshu 後漢書 (Chronicles of the Latter Han
of the kanoe-uma year “more than fifty years later” (i.e. 1810), to the Dynasty), vol. 82, pt. 2 (accessible at https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/
grandson of the original owner, a member of the wealthy Yoshimitsu 後漢書/卷82下#.E8.B4.B9.E9.95.BF.E6.88.BF) which tells the story
family of Hirata, Izumo Province. The inscription narrates that the of Fei Changfang 費長房, a market official who noticed that an aged
scroll was one of numerous works painted by Taiga while he was druggist disappeared down a jar after the close of business every
staying at the Eitokuji, a Rinzai Zen temple in Izumo whose abbot evening. Intrigued, Fei accepted the old man’s invitation to accompany
was Ashizu Keiryu (1720-1769), a leading pupil of Hakuin. The scroll him there the next day and once inside the jar he encountered a
is first illustrated in Saidō seishō (1914), the self-published catalog wonderful world of palaces, fine wine, and delicious food, offering
of the collection of Hatta Hyojiro (original name Satō Hyojiro), which temporary respite from everyday life.
included two other works by Taiga; the Hatta catalog records that the
present lot had formerly been in the collection of “Lord Takamatsu.” The related phrase “paradise in a jar” 壺中天 is also found in the
It next appears in the second sale catalog (1933) of the Soken’an poetry of Li Bai 李白 (701-762), but this scroll concludes with an
collection of Matsumoto Shozo who made his fortune developing inscription from the poet Guo Pu郭璞 (276-324), lines seven and
electric railroads in western Japan. Much of Shozo’s collection, eight of the first of his 14 Youxianshi 遊仙詩 (Jap. Yūsenshi, Poems of
possibly including the present lot, was formed by reassembling works Wandering Immortals), with two characters (可 and 潛) transposed, in
of art formerly owned by his father-in-law, the bankrupt former lumber a particularly striking example of Taiga’s eccentric calligraphy, boldly
and banking magnate Matsumoto Jūtarō (1844-1913), who originally framed by the first and last characters: “sacred” and “ladder.” (For a
assumed the name Soken. The scroll next comes to light in a 1967 full text of the poem, with English translation, see Mary Anne Cartelli,
study of Taiga by the Nanga scholar Matsushita Hidemaro whose The Five-Colored Clouds of Mount Wutai: Poems from Dunhuang,
discussion is reported by Melinda Takeuchi “ . . . During the middle of Leiden, 2013, pp. 16-17.)
the decade, he [Taiga] seems to have made a journey to the Izumo
region. An inscription dated to 1810 on a box for a handscroll entitled 靈谿可潛盤 安事登雲梯
Enchanted Land states that this was one of many works Taiga painted
for the Yoshimitsu family while staying at Eitokuji. The painting bears a He can swim down to the bed of the sacred torrent
date of 1755, third month.” Why would he want to climb a ladder to the clouds?
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