Screen of miscellaneous paintings

Date18th century

Maker Kano School Japanese, 16th-19th centuries

Label TextNo less than sixty-eight pictures are painted on this pair of screens, each drawn from a well-known subject. Together, they represent a wide range of East Asian pictorial traditions, including Japanese narrative scrolls, Chinese ink painting, bird-and-flower as well as figural paintings. Although the screens are not signed, their painting style reasonably leads us to attribute them to the Kano school painters. The Kano school worked in a workshop system and lasted for more than 300 years. To pass down the knowledge of master painters to the next generation, the Kano school kept secretive painting manuals, which often included examples of well-depicted subjects. The painters of these screens must have had access to the painting manuals and perhaps also to the masters’ works, using them as models.

Object number2021.20.b

Provenance[Kyoto Art & Antiques, Seattle, Washington, 2021]; purchased by Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2021

Photo CreditPhoto: Scott Leen

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Boundless: Stories of Asian Art, Feb. 8, 2020 - ongoing [on view Dec. 10, 2021 - July 24, 2022].

Credit LinePurchased with funds from Ina Tateuchi

Dimensions68 1/2 x 11/16 in. (174 x 1.7 cm) 25 1/4 in. (width of widest panel when folded) (64.1 cm) 148 1/8 in. (elongated/full width) (376.2 cm)

MediumPair of six-panel screens; ink, color, and gold on paper