Lot 219: Asami Shoei (Matsue) (1886-1969)

Don Mansho (Ito Hiromasu), 1936
Signed Matsue and sealed Matsue in
Ink, color and gold on silk; framed and glazed
79 1/2 x 40 1/2 in. (202 x 103cm.)

Bunten,Tokyo, 1936

Fuji Art Museum, Fujinomiya City, "Rekishi to roman no kindai Nihonga ten: Meguro Gajoen korekushon" (Exhibition of history and romanticism in modern Nihonga: Meguro Gajoen collection), 1990.4.1-25

PUBLISHED:
Nittenshi hensan iinkai (Nittenshi ed. staff), ed., Kaiso hen (Reorganization volume), vol. 12 of Nittenshi (History of Nitten [Japan Art Exhibition]) (Tokyo: Korinsha, 1984), p. 213, no. 15.

Nittenshi hensan iinkai (Nittenshi ed. staff), ed., Bunten, Teiten, Shin-Bunten, Nitten Zenshuppin mokuroku (Index of all entries for Bunten, Teiten, Shin-Bunten and Teiten), vol. 1 of Nittenshi shiryo (Reference of Nittenshi [Japan Art Exhibition]) (Tokyo: Shadan hojin Nitten, 1990), p. 86.

Hosono Masanobu et al., eds., Rekishi to roman no kindai Nihonga ten: Meguro Gajoen korekushon (Exhibition of history and romanticism in modern Nihonga: Meguro Gajoen Collection) (Tokyo: Art One Co., Ltd., 1990), pl. 17.

Hosokawa Rikizo Collection
Meguro Gajoen Museum of Art, Tokyo

By 1580 there were nearly 100,000 Christian converts in Japan. In 1582 three Christian daimyo in Kyushu, Otomo Sorin, Arima Harunobu and Omura Sumitada, dispached four young boys as an embassy to the pope in Rome. The boys set sail from Nagasaki and traveled for over three years. They passed the Cape of Good Hope, and toured the courts of Lisbon, Madrid, Rome and Florence.

The leader of the mission, Ito Hiromasu, whose Christian name was Mancio, or Don Mansho, was born in 1570 in Hyuga Province. He was the grandson of the niece of Otomo Sorin (1536-1587). He is shown here in the Sovereign Room of St. Peter's, where the young Kyushu ambassadors were received in a formal audience by Pope Gregory XIII in 1585.

Asami Shoei was born in Tokyo and first studied under Terasaki Kogyo (1866-1919), then Matsuoka Eikyu (1881-1938). He won a prize when he entered the 7th Teiten exhibition in 1926. He frequently painted historical figures in classical Yamato-e style using vivid colors.

This lot is offered without reserve.