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Lot Essay
Almost nothing is known about this painter's life, but he came from eastern Japan (the Kanto region). He moved to Kyoto, and his work then gained in sophistication and variety. It is likely that he studied there with a Kano master--some of his landscapes have been misidentified as the work of Kano artists. His only figure painting, an early work based on a Chinese model and with seals reading Maejima and Soyu, is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of the seals on the painting shown here reads Uto Gyoshi in. For a sixteenth-century painting by Uto Gyoshi in the Burke Collection, see Miyeko Murase, Bridge of Dreams (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002), pl. 60.
This work was likely made to memorialize a significant arrangement made for a particular event. Paintings of formal flower arrangements dating from the Muromachi period are extremely rare; masters handed down their creations in scrolls as secret documents. Here, red and white chrysanthemums complement autumn grasses, regally displayed in a metal vase. The Tatehana or Rikka (Standing flower) style first appeared in the late fifteenth century. Rikka flower arrangement developed from the Ikenobo style practiced by the Senkei school in Kyoto. These tall, upright arrangements would be featured on ceremonial and festive occasions.
This work was likely made to memorialize a significant arrangement made for a particular event. Paintings of formal flower arrangements dating from the Muromachi period are extremely rare; masters handed down their creations in scrolls as secret documents. Here, red and white chrysanthemums complement autumn grasses, regally displayed in a metal vase. The Tatehana or Rikka (Standing flower) style first appeared in the late fifteenth century. Rikka flower arrangement developed from the Ikenobo style practiced by the Senkei school in Kyoto. These tall, upright arrangements would be featured on ceremonial and festive occasions.