Visiting a Friend on a Wooded Cliff

Maker(s): Artist: Ike Taiga 池大雅 (1723-1776); Inscription: Box inscribed by Tomioka Tessai 富岡鉄斎 (1836 - 1924)

Historical period(s): Edo period, ca. 1750-55

Medium: Ink and light color on paper

Dimensions: H x W: 197.8 x 45.8 cm (77 7/8 x 18 1/16 in)

Geography: Japan

Credit Line: Gift of Sanae Iida Reeves in memory of her father, Iida Yoshine

Accession Number: F1994.27

On View Location: Currently not on view

Classification(s): Painting

Type: Hanging scroll

Keywords: Edo period (1615 - 1868), Japan, kakemono, mountain, scholar, WWII-era provenance

Provenance

By 1960 to 1962
Yoshine Iida, acquired in Japan by 1960 [1]

From 1962 to 1992
Sanae Iida Reeves, Arligton, VA, by descent, in 1962 [2]

From 1992
Freer Gallery of Art, given by Mr. and Mrs. Douglas F. and Sanae Reeves, in 1992 [3]

Notes:

[1] Ownership of the object by the donor's father, Yoshine Iida, is recorded in the 1960 publication Ike Taiga sakuhin shu (see Curatorial Note 4, Ann Yonemura, June 30, 1992, in the object record).

[2] See note 1.

[3] Transferred from the Freer Study Collection to the Freer Permanent Collection on December 23, 1994 (see Curatorial Note 4, Elizabeth F. Duley, December 30, 1994, in the object record).

Previous Owner(s): Mr. and Mrs. Douglas F. and Sanae Reeves
Iida Yoshine 1898 - 1960

Label: In this steep landscape, a scholar and his young attendant make their way up a pathway toward a retreat where another scholar gazes into the distance. The painting is executed with quick brush strokes accented by dots and lines in black ink. The artist, Ike Taiga, who became a leading proponent of the Nanga school, which specialized in painting Chinese subjects, first learned his distinctive style by studying woodblock-printed manuals on Chinese painting techniques. Many of his landscapes, like this one, were expressions of an idealized way of life rather than portrayals of actual places. Here the inscription quotes a line from a Chinese poem with a slight variation through the substitution of one character: "Mountain ranges of great age; a thousand tiers of trees."

Published References