Nanga
Landscape with scholarSigned: Shinten'ô taiga
Seals: Kame Yamanaka Ken, Seiitsu, unread (tp), Togetsu kôsai sodô( bt)
Technique: sumi on satin 131 x 42,3
Mounting: bronze damask 211 x 56,5
Box: authorised by Rai Kiyoshi (1860-1929)(grandson of Rai San’yô)
Condition: light foxing, otherwise very good
Inscription remains unread
Shinten'ô (Yamanaka Seiitsu) was one of the key figures in the Kyoto literati world.
He was born into a well-to-do and rather intellectual farming family near Nagoya. He studied calligraphy with Shinozaki Shôchiku (1781-1851), but as a painter he was mainly self-taught.
After his father’s death in 1848 he had to continue his studies at the local temple school. After the death of his younger brother his uncle sponsored his Confucian studies with Saitô Setsudô (1792-1865) for three years. Thereafter he studied Chinese literature with Yanagawa Seigan (1781-1859) and Umeda Unpin (1825-1865). With them he met with the royalists Rai Miisaburô and Fujimoto Tesseki (1817-1863) and they became friends. To avoid charges from the Bakufu he started to travel.
As a former member of the anti-Bakufu Imperial Loyalist movement, he received important governmental posts after the Meiji restoration, but, not yet fifty years old, he retired to devote his time to art and literati gatherings in his luxurious villa in Arashima.
Reference:
Addiss 1993
Kato ‘98 first chapter
Berry '01 p. 157-159
Hempel '98 pp. 169-170
Araki p. 1357
Rai Kiyoshi was the grandson of Rai San’yô (1780-1832).
Price: SOLD
