.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
published:
Kobe City Museum, ed., Tokubetsu ten Namban kembunroku: Momoyama kaiga ni miru seiyo to no deai (Special exhibition of observations of Namban: Meeting with the West as seen in Momoyama painting), exh. cat. (Kobe: Kobe City Museum, 1992), no. 48 and pl. 48.
These screens are extremely close in style and composition to one in the Kyoto Mingeikan which has been dated to the Kan'ei era (1624-44). Only the right half of the Mingeikan pair survives (see Takeda Tsuneo et al., Fuzokuga: Rakuchu rakugai [Genre painting: Scenes In and Out of the Capital], vol. 11 of Nihon byobu-e shusei [Tokyo: Kodansha, 1978], pl. 98). In both sets the Gion festival parade along Teramachi Street (bottom of the third and fourth panels on the right screen) includes only the procession of warriors and not the tall shrine floats. Westerners ("Southern barbarians," as they were called) are prominent among spectators at Fifth Avenue (Gojo) Bridge and at the Great Buddha Hall on the right screen.
Panoramic overviews of contemporary Kyoto filled with endlessly fascinating detail first appeared in the beginning of the 16th century and remained popular until the middle of the Edo period. Such screens were in great demand among the people of Kyoto, and were purchased also by out-of-town visitors as a souvenir of their visit to the capital. A few screens can be attributed to a specific artist, but most are the work of anonymous shop painters in large ateliers. The screens shown here, for example, have been attributed to the atelier of a painter trained in the otogi zoshi tradition.
Kobe City Museum, ed., Tokubetsu ten Namban kembunroku: Momoyama kaiga ni miru seiyo to no deai (Special exhibition of observations of Namban: Meeting with the West as seen in Momoyama painting), exh. cat. (Kobe: Kobe City Museum, 1992), no. 48 and pl. 48.
These screens are extremely close in style and composition to one in the Kyoto Mingeikan which has been dated to the Kan'ei era (1624-44). Only the right half of the Mingeikan pair survives (see Takeda Tsuneo et al., Fuzokuga: Rakuchu rakugai [Genre painting: Scenes In and Out of the Capital], vol. 11 of Nihon byobu-e shusei [Tokyo: Kodansha, 1978], pl. 98). In both sets the Gion festival parade along Teramachi Street (bottom of the third and fourth panels on the right screen) includes only the procession of warriors and not the tall shrine floats. Westerners ("Southern barbarians," as they were called) are prominent among spectators at Fifth Avenue (Gojo) Bridge and at the Great Buddha Hall on the right screen.
Panoramic overviews of contemporary Kyoto filled with endlessly fascinating detail first appeared in the beginning of the 16th century and remained popular until the middle of the Edo period. Such screens were in great demand among the people of Kyoto, and were purchased also by out-of-town visitors as a souvenir of their visit to the capital. A few screens can be attributed to a specific artist, but most are the work of anonymous shop painters in large ateliers. The screens shown here, for example, have been attributed to the atelier of a painter trained in the otogi zoshi tradition.