River landscape

Object Details

• Artist

  Unkoku Tohan 雲谷等璠

• School/Tradition

  Unkoku

• Description

  River landscape. Signature and three seals. Paper makimono.

• Signatures

  Sesshū Rokuyo Unkoku Tōhan hitsu

  雪舟六世雲谷等璠筆

  雪舟六世雲谷等璠筆

• Marks

  Artist's seal: (gourd) Unkoku 雲谷

  Artist's seal: (square) Hōgen 法眼

  Artist's seal: (square) Hōgen 法眼

• Label

  Over the course of his long life, Tōhan headed the Unkoku studio in Hagi, located in today’s Yamaguchi Prefecture in western Japan. Like many of his forebears in the hereditary Unkoku lineage, Tōhan claimed artistic ancestry from the most venerated of Japanese ink painters, Sesshū. The Unkoku lineage mainly laid claim to that patrimony by safeguarding and copying Sesshū’s famous Long Landscape scroll in which he depicted a journey through an imagined Chinese terrain. This scroll is Tōhan’s copy of the seminal original, made to perpetuate his ties to Sesshū’s legacy.

• 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 Makimono List, L. 451, pg. 121, 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.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Mind Over Matter: Zen in Medieval Japan (March 5, 2022 - July 24, 2022)

  Zen, Tea, and Chinese Art in Medieval Japan (December 13, 2014 to June 14, 2015)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Michael Tomkinson (1841-1921) (C.L. Freer source)

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

• Origin

  Japan

• Credit Line

  Gift of Charles Lang Freer

• Type

  Painting

• Restrictions and Rights

  CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

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  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1770s, 1780s, 1790s, 1730s, 1740s, 1750s, 1760s, 1800s, 1810s, 1820s, 1830s, 1610s, 1650s, 1640s, 1630s, 1620s, 1690s, 1840s, 1680s, 1850s, 1670s, 1860s, 1660s

• Name

  Freer, Charles Lang, Tomkinson, Michael

• Place

  Japan

• Topic

  Trees, Mountains, Charles Lang Freer collection, Landscapes, Boats and boating, Art, Edo period, Japan, (1600 - 1868), Japanese Art, Rivers, Makimono

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Paintings