Flowers and insects

Object Details

• Artist

  Tosa school

• School/Tradition

  Tosa

• Label

  In these screens flower beds stretch in narrow, undulating bands across a ground of gold leaf unadorned except for hovering insects. The sparse composition echoes in much larger scale an established style of floral under-painting rendered on paper intended for use in handscrolls of imperial poetry anthologies, on which a calligrapher would inscribe the poems in the empty spaces. The paintings are probably the work of an unidentified artist of the Tosa school of court painters, based in Kyoto.

• Provenance

  To 1907

  Unidentified owner, Tokyo, Japan, to 1907 [1]

  From 1907 to 1919

  Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased in Tokyo, Japan, from an unidentified owner in 1907 [2]

  From 1920

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

  Notes:

  [1] See Original Screen List, S.I. 134, pg. 36, 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

  Japanese Screens (March 2007 to January 3, 2016)

• Previous custodian or owner

  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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• Related Resources

  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, 1860s, 1670s, 1660s

• Name

  Freer, Charles Lang

• Place

  Japan

• Topic

  Charles Lang Freer collection, Art, Insects, Edo period, Japan, (1600 - 1868), Japanese Art, Flowers

• Culture

  Japanese

• Object Type

  Paintings