Lot 147: Kato Hankei (1841–1906) Asian Art

Meiji Period, dated 1888 A pair of six-fold screens, painted in ink and slight colour on paper, each panel a flower painting in Chinese style accompanied by a Chinese poem, the final panel signed Tsuchinoe-ne shunjitsu Oita kyakuji ni oite kono juniketsu shutoku ichizetsu o egaite Hankei (I painted this complete set of 12 pages at the Ōita guesthouse on a Spring day in the tsuchinoe-ne year [1888]Hankei), with two seals. 176.5cm x 372cm

176.5cm x 372cm

Essentially a set of 12 hanging scrolls, each representing one of the 12 months, mounted as a pair of folding screens, this remarkable series of paintings is a tour-de-force of the later Nanga style, dating from the period when increased access to Chinese painters in Nagasaki enabled Japanese artists to essay a more authentic interpretation of mainland artistic traditions. More than just a survey of seasonal flowers, the panels also constitute an anthology of Chinese poetry: while the poems on the first and last panels are otherwise unrecorded and may well be by Hankei himself, several of the others are by some of the most celebrated classical poets, including Li Deyu (787–850, second panel); Han Wo (844–923, third panel), Li Xianyong (late Tang, fourth panel), Han Yu (768–824, fifth panel), Bai Juyi (772–846, sixth panel), Su Shi (1037–1101), and four unidentified Ming and Song-dynasty poets. Born in Osaka, Kato Hankei began painting with his father Katō Hanzan and uncle Katō Bokkei, then travelled to Nagasaki and studied with a Chinese painter, Xu Yutin (born 1824), who was there from 1861 to 1867. In 1876, he returned to his father's birthplace in Nagano Prefecture but spent much of his career touring the country as a guest painter, as this set of paintings attests. He died suddenly at his son's home in Tokyo.