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Lot Essay
The subject alludes to Hideyoshi's famous cherry-blossom excursion at Daigoji, a temple southeast of Kyoto. The excursion in the spring of 1598 was known as the Daigo no hanami, or Cherry-blossom viewing at Daigo. In this painting a young attendant holds a red paper parasol with Hideyoshi's paulownia crest over the head of a wealthy young woman wearing a katsugi, or kimono-shaped headcover. Small bells are strung between the trees.
Shoha was born Ito Sato in Uji-Yamada in Mie Prefecture but moved to Kyoto at the age of twenty-one to study with Morikawa Sobun. When Sobun died in 1902 she became a student of Taniguchi Kogyo and took the art name Shoha. She won third prize when she exhibited in the ninth Bunten in 1915. Later she exhibited in the Teiten, and her work was shown in Paris in 1922. In the Taisho period she specialized in genre paintings of beautiful young women of the day dressed in exquisite kimono but in the Showa period she began painting young women in an historical context. In 1928 she joined Chikujo, the painting group formed by the famous Kyoto Nihonga artist Takeuchi Seiho, and, like Uemura Shoen, was known as an accomplished woman artist.
Shoha was born Ito Sato in Uji-Yamada in Mie Prefecture but moved to Kyoto at the age of twenty-one to study with Morikawa Sobun. When Sobun died in 1902 she became a student of Taniguchi Kogyo and took the art name Shoha. She won third prize when she exhibited in the ninth Bunten in 1915. Later she exhibited in the Teiten, and her work was shown in Paris in 1922. In the Taisho period she specialized in genre paintings of beautiful young women of the day dressed in exquisite kimono but in the Showa period she began painting young women in an historical context. In 1928 she joined Chikujo, the painting group formed by the famous Kyoto Nihonga artist Takeuchi Seiho, and, like Uemura Shoen, was known as an accomplished woman artist.