Shunyu

Late Edo period 19th century Japanese six-panel landscape screen featuring a cypress tree over a flowering hibiscus with a pair of hototogisu birds. Kano school painted with ink and ...

19th century mid-Edo period Japanese four-panel miniature screen. Depicting a beautifully painted Chinese blue and green landscape in the Nanga School...

Serene Japanese late Taisho period early Showa period two-panel byobu screen featuring a colorful bamboo loquat landscape with a butterfly. Beautifully crafted in the Nihonga school ...

Late 19th / early 20th century Japanese Meiji period two-panel folding byobu screen featuring a winter landscape with a Chinese country villa and distant village. Kano School screen ...

A gorgeous two-panel Japanese Byobu folding screen depicting a nature landscape scene with a two wild birds frolicking along a riverbank/lakeside among a patch of blossoming flowers....

Serene Japanese Showa period two-panel folding byobu screen depicting a large spring blossoming prunus tree or plum tree. Beautifully painted with ink and natural color pigments on m...

Spectacular 19th century Japanese late Edo period six-panel byobu screen depicting Yoshitsune and Benkei, two heroes of Japanese folklore. Crafted in ink and natural color pigments on mulberry paper with thick gold leaf borders on each panel. The character Yoshitsune is seated under a blossoming cherry tree in full armor holding a fan. The warrior priest or monk Benkei is depicted kneeling on a leopard skin...

Japanese Four-Panel Floor Screen, Ink and Watercolor on Paper, mounted on board, depicting mountainous landscape scene with seaside village. Panel: 55.25" H x 24.75" W; whole: 99" W....

Large Japanese Meiji period six-panel screen depicting a winter landscape with a Chinese sage visiting friends in a country villa. Ink and vivid color pigments on mulberry paper mounted to a gilt background. Painted in the 19th century Kano school...

Imao Keisho (1902-1993) Pine Trees Early 20th Century, Circa 1930 Pair of six-panel Japanese screens. Ink on silk and gold leaf. Dimensions: Each screen H. 67.5” x 148” (172 cm x 376 cm) A pair of monumental six-panel Japanese pine screens by the renowned Nihonga artist Imao Keisho. Here Keisho entirely removed the background and brought the pine trees to the surface of the painting. This simplification of the elements makes the scene exceptionally direct and compelling and injects a very modern...

Fantastic pair of 19th century Japanese late Edo/early Meiji period six-panel screens titled The seven sages of the bamboo grove. The Kano school screens...

Three Friends of Winter Nakajima Raisho (1796-1871) Late Edo period, circa 1850 Ink and gold leaf on paper. This is a double-sided Japanese Furosaki or tea-ceremony screen from the mid 19th century; bamboo and plum on the front, young pines the back. It by Nakajima Raisho, a master painter of the Maruyama school in the late Edo and early Meiji periods. In this work Raisho combines exquisite ink brushwork with large open spaces of brilliant gold-leaf to inspire the viewers imagination. Rather than naturalism, he is searching for the phycological impression of the motifs, resulting in abstraction and stylization. His simplification of the motifs the result of looking to capture the inner nature of the objects. This art motif is known as Sho Chiku Bai, or the Three Friends of Winter. Evergreen pine connotes steadfastness, bamboo suggests both strength and flexibility, while plum blossoms unfurling on snow-laden branches imply hardiness. Combined, this trio is emblematic of Japanese new year. Chinese literati were the first to group the three plants together due to their noble characteristics. Like these resilient plants flowering so beautifully in winter, it was expected of the scholar-gentleman to cultivate a strong character with which he would be able to show the same degree of perseverance and steadfastness even during times of adverse conditions. The screen would have been placed near the hearth of a room used for the Japanese tea ceremony, shielding the fire from draughts and also forming a stimulating and decorative backdrop behind the tea utensils. It would have been used in the Hatsugama, or first tea-ceremony of the new year. Nakajima Raisho (1796-1871) originally studied under Watanabe Nangaku before entering the school of Maruyama Ozui. He was the highest ranking Maruyama school painter at the end of the Edo period and was known as one of the ‘Four Heian Families’ along with Kishi...