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.