Thatched huts along a shoreline from the Three Dusks

Maker(s)
Artist: Kano Tan'yū 狩野探幽 (1602-1674)
Historical period(s)
Edo period, 1665
Medium
Ink and color on silk
Dimensions
H x W (image): 30.5 × 44.8 cm (12 × 17 5/8 in)
Geography
Japan
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art Collection
Accession Number
F1904.370
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Painting
Type

Hanging scroll

Keywords
Edo period (1615 - 1868), Japan, kakemono
Provenance

To 1904
Michael Tomkinson (1841-1921), Kidderminster, England, to 1904 [1]

From 1904 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Michael Tomkinson in 1904 [2]

From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

Notes:

[1] See Original Kakemono Reserved List, R. 397, pg. 10, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

[2] See note 1.

[3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Michael Tomkinson (C.L. Freer source) 1841-1921
Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919

Label

This painting belongs to a set of three by Kano Tan'yu, a leading painter of the Kano school of professional artists. Inspiration for the paintings came from groups of poems known as the "Three Dusks" or "Three Evening Poems."  The verse inscribed on this painting was composed by Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241):


I gaze afar
And ask for neither cherry flowers
Nor crimson leaves:
The inlet with its grass-thatched huts
Clustered in the growing autumn dusk.


Translation by Robert H. Brower and Earl Miner, Japanese Court Poetry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961)

Published References
  • Daisuke Shibahashi. Meaning of Tanyu Composition in development of Paintings and Teika Poems of the Flowers and Birds of the Twelve Months: In the Context of Waka Poetics. no. 33 Japan. .
  • Yoshiaki Shimizu. An Individual Taste for Japanese Painting. vol. 118, no. 258 London, August 1983. pp. 136-149, fig. 11.
Collection Area(s)
Japanese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

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