18th Century and Earlier Paintings

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 ...

Omori Soun (b. 1704) Chrysanthemums - One Hundred Flowers A Pair of Six-fold Japanese Screens. Ink, color, gofun and gold leaf on paper. Dating ...

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...

Kano Naonobu (1607-1650) Plum Tree and Birds Six-fold Japanese Screen. Ink and slight color on paper. In this evocative ink work spread over a six-panel folding screen, we see the consummation of the elegance and refinement of the Edo Kano school. This 17th century screen is a rare surviving example of a large-scale bird and flower painting by Kano Naonobu, the younger brother of Kano Tanyu...

18th century Japanese scroll of poppies. Edo Period (early 18th century) Japanese painting of poppies with lilies in the background. Seal on the lower...

Stunning late 19th century Japanese Meiji period six panel byobu screen featuring a deep blue waterscape with pheasants and ducks. Made in the Kano sch...

Horses Kano Tanshin Morimasa (1653-1718) Two-panel tea-ceremony Japanese screen or furosaki Ink on gold leaf, late 17th-early 18th century Measures: H 55 cm x W 182 cm The Kano school was closely aligned with the warrior class in Japan. The samurai, who lived in a closed and rigid hierarchical society established by the Shogunate, were drawn to the energy and freedom horses symbolize; Kano school artists commonly depicted the equine creatures as they are here, in unfettered and carefree family groups. China originally introduced horse paintings to Japan; the works typically focused on capturing the essence of horses in their various environments and often involved integrating human figures into the images. Kano Tanshin Morimasa (1653-1718) was the son of Kano Tanyu...

Early 19th century late Edo period Japanese four-panel screen depicting examples from the 24 paragons of filial piety. Painted in the Kano School style featuring figures in colorful,...

Birds & Flowers of the seasons Pheasants & Plum in Snow Unframed painting. Ink, pigment and gofun on silk Kano Chikanobu 1819-1888 Signature...

Pines and Cranes Anonymous. Kyoto Kano School. Late 17th/early 18th centuries, circa 1700. Pair of six-panel Japanese folding screens. Ink, gofun, pigment and gold leaf on paper. This bold composition presents two pine trees extending to the left and right across a gold leaf background. One tree is silhouetted against a green ground, golden clouds obscuring its true size, the other stretches across a stylized waterway. The pines are paired with Manchurian cranes with red crests and snow white plumage. Both have been highly auspicious motifs in East Asia since Chinese antiquity. Here the artist utilized fluid and instinctive ink brushstrokes to define the trunk, branches and tail feathers, in strong contrast to the precision and sharp angularity of the crane’s legs and beaks. The adoption of this vast metallic painting support required an unerring sense of design and composition, so that the negative space surrounding motifs could imply context for the otherwise floating pictorial elements. The brushwork detailing the trunks of the pines, the exaggerated dimensions of the pine trees and the strength and dynamism of the composition are all reminiscent of Kano Eitoku...

18th Century Kano School Pine Screen Delve into the historic brilliance with this majestic gold-leafed screen from the renowned Kano School. The grand green pine, a recurrent motif in Japanese art...

Cranes Anonymous, Kano School. Edo period, second half of the 17th century. Pair of six-panel screens. Ink, pigment gofun and gold l...