Lot 301: Tanaka Totsugen (1767-1823)

Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk; depicting the long-tailed bird beneath the shrub, whose bright red berries are all but covered by snow; signed Totsugen with seal Chio; together with a double tomobako, inscribed Meiji sanjukyu-nen hinoeuma kajitsu, Kyosai shintei chadai ken (Summer day, year of the horse, Meiji 39 [1906], authenticated by Kyosai [his pupil], with seals Kyosai and another to the interior box lid.
18 x 28 1/2in (45.7 x 72.4cm)

Tanaka Totsugen first studied with Ishida Yutei (1721-1786), a Kyoto painter known for his realistic bird-and-flower paintings. Then Totsugen turned to Tosa Mitsusada (1738-1906) in order to study one of the oldest indigenous traditions of Japanese painting, yamato-e. By copying yamato-e masterpieces such as the wall paintings at Byodoin Temple, he strove to revitalize these older aesthetics.

Reference: The Museum of Kyoto, ed., The Blooming of Hundreds of Flowers: Painters of Edo Period Kyoto in the Heian jimbutsushi (Kyoto: Museum of Kyoto, 1998), fig. 3-60, p. 284.