Mandarin Ducks and Red Plum
Dateca. 1900
Maker
Watanabe Shotei
Japanese, 1851 - 1918
Label TextThis pair of hanging scrolls features auspicious subjects associated with cold and warm weather. In the righthand scroll, a pair of Mandarin ducks—symbols of marital fidelity and harmony--huddle together in the cold of late winter beneath the red blossoms of an old plum tree. A pair of carp, often suggestive of perseverance but, depicted in pairs as here, also a potent symbol of marriage and family, swim below delicately rendered aquatic plants in the left scroll. In the 1870s, Watanabe Seitei became the first Japanese painter associated with Nihonga (modern traditionalist painting) to spend time in Europe, traveling to the US and France, where he lived in Paris for three years. His painting style combines aspects of Western realism and traditional Japanese painting.
Object number97.71.1
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", December 6, 1997 - November 15, 1998Credit LineGift of Griffith and Patricia Way
DimensionsOverall (incl. endknobs): 88 × 23 15/16 in. (223.5 × 60.8 cm)
Image: 48 9/16 × 15 13/16 in. (123.3 × 40.1 cm)
MediumColor on silk
Chinese
first half 19th century
Object number: 33.1136
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