Lot 2152: KOMAI GENKI (1747-1797) Yang Guifei

Yang Guifei
Hanging scroll; ink, color and gold on silk; dated Kansei kanoto i boka sha (Drawn in late summer 1791, year of the Boar); signed Genki; sealed Genki no in and Shion

With wood box inscribed Yokihi, Genki hitsu (Yang Guifei drawn by Genki) sealed Chikken seisho
42 1/4 x 17 1/4in (107.3 x 43.8cm)

Provenance: Yoshida Fuken collection

Published: Sasaki Johei and Sasaki Masako. Kogasoran: Maruyama shijo ha kei san/Photographic Archives of Japanese Paintings: Maruyama Shijo School 3 (2001), no. 4594.
Another nearly identical version is published in the above journal, image no. 4592.
Also published in Yoshida Fuken nyusatsu mokuroku (1924)

The beauty Yang Guifei (719-756) was the favorite consort of the Tang dynasty Emperor Xuangong (r. 712-756).

Komai Genki (Yukinosuke) was a painter who worked in Kyoto. He studied with a number of prominent painters, most notably Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795). Okyo prompted the demand for paintings of Chinese beauties, a fashion which continued long after his death. Another of Okyo's prominent students, Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754-1799), also painted at least one version of this subject. For an in depth discussion of this subject with similar examples by Okyo, Rosetsu and Genki, see Timothy Clark's article, Japanese Paintings of Chinese Beauties in the Late Edo Period, in Miyeko Murase and Judith G. Smith, ed., The Arts of Japan: An International Symposium (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), 220-247.