Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content
Seattle Art Museum (SAM)
menu

Butterflies

Photo: Susan A. Cole

Butterflies

1843

Kano School

Japanese, 16th-19th centuries

Kinoshita Itsuun

Japanese, 1799 - 1866

Ichikawa Beian

Japanese, 1779 - 1858

In the early 19th century, a popular artistic genre among literati circles was the group painting, in which several painters and poets collaborated on a single work. Usually such works were limited to ten participants, but in the case of this elegant pair of hanging scrolls, over seventy different distinguished hands added a Chinese verse or a minutely detailed painting. The majority of contributors were members of the orthodox Kano school, a hereditary school of professional artists that dominated artistic practice in the late Edo period. Other contributors included natural historian and painter Baba Taisuke, reminiscent of a Japanese James Audubon. Baba, a high-ranking samurai, was most certainly painting from life, and not from imported copy books.


Hanging scroll; Ink and color on silk
75 x 18 1/8 in. (190.5 x 46cm)
Gift of Frank D. Stout
92.47.324.2
Photo: Susan A. Cole
location
Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, A Sack Full of Tigers: Diffusion and Diversity in Japanese Painting of the 19th Century Diffusion and Diversity in Japanese Painting, Dec. 6, 1997 - Nov. 15, 1998.

Tokyo, Japan, Suntory Museum of Art, Luminous Jewels: Masterpieces of Asian Art From the Seattle Art Museum, July 25 - Sept. 6, 2009 (Kobe, Japan, Kobe City Museum, Sept. 19 - Dec. 6, 2009; Kofu, Japan, Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Dec. 23, 2009 - Feb. 28, 2010; Atami, Japan, MOA Museum of Art, Mar. 13 - May 9, 2010; Fukuoka, Japan, Fukuoka Art Museum, May 23 - July 19, 2010).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Luminous: The Art of Asia, Oct. 13, 2011 - Jan. 8, 2012.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Tabaimo: Utsutsushi Utsushi, Nov. 11, 2016 - Feb. 26, 2017.

Published ReferencesKawai, Masatomo, Yasuhiro Nishioka, Yukiko Sirahara, editors, "Luminous Jewels: Masterpieces of Asian Art From the Seattle Art Museum", 2009, The Yomiuri Shimbun, catalogue number 52

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM