Caption
Photography credit: Paula Rosenblum
Preview
Exhibition Opening Date
9-1-2021
Description
Table Screen with Flower Cart
20th century, Japan
Tempera with gold leaf
Gift of Frank A. Gallagher III ’32
This four-panel table screen painting depicts a flower cart with red tassels. Screens like this would have often adorned the living and tea rooms of samurai families to demonstrate their wealth, power, and high rank to their guests. In this one the artist depicts the popular theme of the Four Seasons with a wide variety of flower species associated with different seasons, including: kerria roses, irises, orchards, peonies, chrysanthemums, bush clover, and snow-dusted lantern flowers. The treatment of pictorial elements is consistent with the gentle, elegant painting style of Kano Mitsunobu, whose works adorned a number of samurai residences in Kyoto.
Keywords
College of the Holy Cross, student curator, Cantor Resource Gallery, Asian export art