Lot 108: Rural landscape with oxen grazing

Kano Tan'yu (1602-1674)
Rural landscape with oxen grazing
Each signed Kano Uneme no sei Morinobu hitsu, sealed Morinobu and Uneme
Pair of four-panel screens; ink and gold leaf on paper
38 1/8 x 91¾in. (97 x 233cm.) each (2)

Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, "Seitan yonhyakunen kinen--Kano Tan'yu ten/Paintings by Kano Tan'yu--Commemorating the 400th [anniversary] of Tan'yu's birth," 2002.10.19-12.8

Kozu Kobunka Kaikan Museum, Kyoto, "Heisei jugonendo shuki tokubetsuten: Takatsu korekushon: Kanoha no kaiga--Kyo Kano to Edo Kano" (Special exhibition autumn 2003: Takatsu Collection: Kano school paintings--The Kyoto Kano and the Edo Kano), 2003.10.25-11.16


PUBLISHED:
Nihon keizai shinbunsha, ed., Seitan yonhyakunen kinen--Kano Tan'yu ten/Paintings by Kano Tan'yu--Commemorating the 400th of Tan'yu's birth (Tokyo: Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 2002), pl. 19.

Kozu Kobunka Kaikan Museum, ed., Heisei jugonendo shuki tokubetsuten: Takatsu korekushon: Kanoha no kaiga--Kyo Kano to Edo Kano (Special exhibition autumn 2003: Takatsu Collection: Kano school paintings--The Kyoto Kano and the Edo Kano) (Kyoto: Kozu Kobunka Kaikan Museum, 2003), pl. 1

Yasumura Toshinobu, Motto shiritai: Kanoha--Tan'yu to Edo Kanoha (We want to know more: Kano school: Tan'yu and the Edo Kano school) (Tokyo: Tokyo bijutsu, 2006), p. 19.

Kozu Kobunka Kaikan Museum, Kyoto

The subject of oxen that have escaped from their stable represents a yearning for freedom. The theme is familiar from medieval ink painting, notably Oxen by Bunsei (fl. mid-15th century) in the Kyoto National Museum (see Matsushita Ryusho and Tamamura Takeji, Josetsu, Shubun, San Ami , vol. 6 of Suiboku bijutsu taikei [Collection of ink paintings] [Tokyo: Kodansha, 1974], pl. 93). Tan'yu recasts the theme in contemporary fashion on a gold leaf ground.

The signature, Uneme no sei , is rare; Tan'yu used it prior to 1635, when he took the name Tan'yusai, replacing his earlier name, Morinobu.