Lot 250*
Shibata Zeshin (1807-1891) Dated 1866
10 November 2011, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £32,450 inc. premium
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Shibata Zeshin (1807-1891)
Dated 1866
Emakimono (handscroll), painted in ink and slight-colour on paper with a humorous continuous scene of several turtles personified in a variety of human activities and pursuits including punting, sumo-wrestling, fishing, playing musical instruments, performing acrobatic feats and drinking sake, dated and signed Keio ni tsuchinoto shunjitsu Zeshin (On a Spring day in the second Year of Keio [1866], Zeshin) with seal Tairyukyo; with double-wood storage boxes. 31cm x 704cm (12¼in x 277 1/8in). (3).
Emakimono (handscroll), painted in ink and slight-colour on paper with a humorous continuous scene of several turtles personified in a variety of human activities and pursuits including punting, sumo-wrestling, fishing, playing musical instruments, performing acrobatic feats and drinking sake, dated and signed Keio ni tsuchinoto shunjitsu Zeshin (On a Spring day in the second Year of Keio [1866], Zeshin) with seal Tairyukyo; with double-wood storage boxes. 31cm x 704cm (12¼in x 277 1/8in). (3).
Footnotes
亀戯画巻 柴田是真筆 一巻 紙本着色 1866年
Zeshin's studio was situated on the bank of a river, providing him with ample opportunity to observe nature and the creatures that inhabited the natural world. Like many painters of the nineteeth century, he was eclectic in his sources and would have been exposed to traditional styles. However, Zeshin's skill was such that he could fluidly mix styles, painting part of a composition in one manner and including elements of another to add variety. Here, the turtles are painted in the Shijo-manner but imbued with a personal, atmospheric quality and satirical humour, reminiscent of the Chouju-jinbutsu-giga, a famous emakimono which pioneered the depiction of frolicking animal-person caricatures, painted in the twelfth century by reputedly the Buddhist monk Toba Sojo.
