Lot 3089: AFTER IKE NO TAIGA (1723-1776) DISTANT LANDSCAPE AND BOWER Hanging scroll: ink and color on paper

AFTER IKE NO TAIGA (1723-1776) DISTANT LANDSCAPE AND BOWER Hanging scroll: ink and color on paper, depicting a lone scholar approaching a bower, a mountainous landscape in the distance, with a long colophon inscribed with a pair of Chinese seven-character couplets and Mumei, bearing seals Ike mumei no in and Sangaku doja With wood tomobako storage box with an inscription by Nagao Kayo (1824-1913) dated 1902, and with additional inscription by Yamanaka Rankei (1883-1975) dated June 1962.

Provenance Motoyama Chikuso collection Two box inscriptions accompanying this painting attest to the authenticity of this work. The earlier, written by Nagao Kayo, a pupil of Tsubaki Chinzan (1801-1854), praises this painting, pointing out that it is exhibits kifin (Ch. qiyun), the first of the six laws of painting associated with Tang dynasty masters. The later inscription by Yamanaka Rankei, a scholar familiar with the work of Ike Taiga and co-author of an important study of the artist published in 1960 (see below), discusses the painting at length suggesting that Taiga was drawing here on the works of the early Chinese masters Wang Wei (699-759) and Mi Youren (1075-1151). Kosugi Hoan, Tanaka Ichimatsu and Yamanaka Rankei, Ike Taiga sakuhinshu (The Works of Ike-no Taiga), Tokyo, Chuo Koron Bijutsu Shuppan, 1960