painting;
hanging scroll
- Museum number
- 1881,1210,0.204
- Description
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Painting, hanging scroll. Buddhist monk Saigyo Hoshi dressed as travelling priest, listening to sound of koto from house at Kita Shirakawa. Ink and colour on silk. Signed. Sealed and inscribed.
- Production date
- 1681-1696
- Dimensions
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Height: 96.10 centimetres
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Width: 39.10 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Hizo Nihon bijutsu taikan Vol 3
This work, a faithful translation into pictorial terms of a poem included in 'Sanka-shu', a collection of verse by the Heian-period poet Saigyo, shows Saigyo absorbed in listening to the sound of a 'koto' being played inside a house. The presence of the beautiful woman playing it is merely suggested by showing one part of the instrument. The picture as a whole is done in pleasantly cool tones, but the lines of Saigyo's black-dyed robe and the lines separating the parts of the building show an undeniable stiffness.
The artist, Tosa Mitsunari (1646-1710), was the son-in-law of Mitsuoki (1617-91), the man who revived the Tosa family's fortunes in the early Edo period.
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'Inscription written by Konoé Iéhiro.'
'Signed Tosa Shōrokui no gé sakoné no Shōgen. Seal Mitsu-nari no in.'
'正六位下左近衛將監' 'copy'
(unattributed annotations in the specially interleaved Japanese Study Room copy of Anderson 1886)
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated titles
Inscription from: Sanka-shu 山家集
- Acquisition date
- 1881
- Acquisition notes
- The collection of over 2,000 Japanese and Chinese paintings assembled by Prof. William Anderson during his residency in Japan, 1873-1880, was acquired by the Museum in 1881. The items were not listed in the register, but rather were published separately as the 'Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of a Collection of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum' (Longmans & Co, 1886).
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1881,1210,0.204
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.113 (Japanese Painting Number)