Page 14 - Christies Japanese and Korean Art Sept 22 2020 NYC

Golden clouds—perhaps a band of mist—drift along the bottom, head of the Tatekawacho lineage of Kano artists upon his father’s
obscuring the immediate foreground. Both screens feature a untimely and somewhat mysterious death. Tan’yu then took him
beautifully crafted, low bamboo fence. Look closely and you on and tutored him, teaching him to sketch from life, not only
will also discover prickly brushwood hedges, highlighted with a plants but fish, insects and birds. Judging by the signature on these
slightly greenish-gold color, located both behind and in front of screens, which lacks the honorific title hokkyo (“bridge of the Law”)
the fences. Artfully bound together, the individual sticks and twigs conferred upon Tsunenobu in 1704, the painting predates that year.
are painstakingly modeled in relief to create an interesting texture.
Clusters of blossoms, some built up in relief, are planted in front Tsunenobu was well versed in Chinese studies and the work of
of, between and behind the hedges, a complex layering to suggest ancient masters. And he loved poetry. He was also well connected
depth. Blooms hang over the fences, or tower behind, in rhythmic socially, collaborating with the likes of the cultivated Kyoto
sequences. Clumps of spiky, dark-green bamboo grass accentuate nobleman Konoe Iehiro (1667–1736). An album of Tsunenobu’s
the foreground. paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has an
inscription on its wood storage box indicating that it was once in
The artist, Kano Tsunenobu, is not a household name, unlike the possession of Iehiro.
his famous and influential uncle, Kano Tan’yu (1602–1674). He
was the eldest son of Kano Naonobu (1607–1650), who was a It is possible that a courtier among Tsunenobu’s circle of friends
younger brother of Tan’yu. Naonobu worked in Edo (Tokyo) commissioned this dazzling pair of golden screens. We are presumably
for the Tokugawa shogunate and was granted property there gazing at the well-tended garden of a member of the uppermost elite.
in Tatekawacho. Tsunenobu was only fifteen when he became Seated on the host’s verandah, we await our cup of wine.

After Yun Shouping (1633-1690). Chrysanthemums.
China. Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of John M.
Crawford Jr., 1988

Known as the master of mogu style (boneless style)
painting, Yun Shouping influenced many of Japanese
artists from Edo period. Although the connection
between Yun Shouping and Tsunenobu is unclear,
this painting demonstrates the similar depiction of
chrysanthemums shown on the present lot.