Thomsen Gallery

Konoshima Ōkoku

Autumn Mountain Landscape, 1920s-30s
Hanging scroll; ink, mineral colors on silk
Overall size: 83 x 22 in. (211 x 56 cm)
Image size: 50¼ x 16½ in. (128 x 42 cm)

Signed and sealed at lower left Ōkoku

Comes with a double wood tomobako storage box, the inner box inscribed outside Keijō shūshoku (Fall Colors Over the Gorge); signed inside Ōkoku saku and sealed Ōkoku; contained within a translucent red-lacquered outer box with an exhibition label inscribed Bangō ni hissha Ōkoku sensei Zudai Momiji sansui sango Bikō (Number Two; Artist Master Ōkoku; Subject Maple Leaf Landscape 35; Remarks)

In this masterly synthesis of elements of traditional East Asian pictorial space, nineteenth-century Romantic landscape painting, and Japanese observational naturalism, Konoshima Ōkoku creates a compelling vision of an autumnal mountain wilderness. Working with a rich vocabulary of dry, energetic brushwork, he exploits the natural tone of the silk ground, building form through layered washes of mineral red and ink gray that evoke the crisp atmosphere and rugged textures of the highlands. The composition is carefully orchestrated to draw the viewer’s eye deep into the ravine and upward along the towering slopes. Rather than including the diminutive cottages or solitary travelers that traditionally serve as markers of human scale in the Chinese and Japanese landscape tradition, Ōkoku places a flock of tiny birds in the depths of the valley. Their almost imperceptible presence heightens the monumentality of the surrounding peaks, emphasizing the grandeur of the untamed natural world.

One of the leading Nihonga painters of the early twentieth century, Konoshima Ōkoku (birth name: Bunjirō) was born into a distinguished Kyoto family with deep artistic connections. His great-grandfather, Konoshima Mototsune, trained under a painter of the Kano school and participated in the late eighteenth-century refurbishment of the Kyoto Imperial Palace while his grandfather, Shūkichi, founded a business supplying furnishings to the Imperial Household and maintained close friendships with prominent painters and ceramic artists.

After leaving Kyoto Municipal Commercial School without graduating, Ōkoku entered the studio of the celebrated painter Imao Keinen (1845–1924) at the age of nineteen. He also studied Chinese poetry under Yamamoto Keigu, developing a lifelong passion for classical Chinese literature. An exceptionally talented student, he received commendations at the Third and Fourth Seinen Kaiga Kyōshinkai (Young Artists’ Association) shows in the mid-1890s and soon became active in major exhibitions, including those of the Kyoto Art Association and the Shinko Bijutsuten (Exhibition of Ancient and Modern Art). His paintings were purchased on two occasions by the Imperial Household.

Ōkoku achieved national prominence at the inaugural Bunten (Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition) in 1907, where his painting Shigure (Late Autumn Rain) won second prize. He continued to receive awards through the Sixth Bunten Exhibition and exhibited regularly at the Bunten and its successor, the Teiten, for nearly three decades. In 1913 he served as a juror for the Seventh Bunten in place of his teacher Keinen. Alongside Kikuchi Keigetsu, he was regarded as one of the first major stars produced by the Bunten system. Building on the traditions of the Maruyama and Shijō schools, he was initially celebrated for his paintings of animals, but later expanded his repertoire to include landscapes, most often as here in tall hanging-scroll format and with a special penchant for autumnal scenes. In addition to his success as an exhibitor, Ōkoku was appointed instructor at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts in 1912 and professor at the Kyoto Municipal Specialist School of Painting in 1915.

A prolific traveler, Ōkoku made extensive sketching journeys throughout Japan. Many of these plein-air studies survive in the Ōkoku Bunko, an archive preserving numerous works meticulously annotated in elegant classical Chinese. His paintings are held today in major Japanese museums and religious institutions. In his later years he increasingly devoted himself to Chinese poetry and calligraphy, earning a reputation as an eccentric and unworldly figure who gradually withdrew from public life. He died tragically in a railroad accident on November 3, 1938.

Interest in Ōkoku’s work has remained strong in recent years. Major retrospective exhibitions were held at the Fukuda Museum of Art, the Saga Arashiyama Museum of Arts and Culture, and the Sen-Oku Hakukokan Museum (Tokyo) between 2021 and 2023.

Thomsen Gallery

Places Along the Tokaido

Early Edo period, ca 1620, Japan
Pair of six-panel folding screens
Ink, mineral colors, shell powder, and gold on paper with gold leaf
Size each screen: 47 x 110½ in. (119.5 x 280.5 cm)

In the top right-hand corner of the right-hand screen we see Edo Castle, seat of shogunal power, and its moat. The Nihonbashi Bridge in the center of Edo, traditionally treated as the starting point of the Tōkaidō, is omitted but Shinagawa, the first station, is shown in the center of the first panel. The route skirts Edo Bay, with a variety of travelers going in both directions, crosses the Tama River at the Rokugō Bridge and continues to Totsuka (5), on the third panel of the screen. In order to prevent the rapid deployment of hostile troops, the shogunate forbade the construction of bridges at several points where they would have made life easier for travelers, starting with the Banyū River, as the Sagami River is known at the point where it flows into Sagami Bay. There we see passengers on a ferry, with others waiting on either bank, while at the Sakawa River crossing, on the fourth panel, travelers wade across to reach Odawara (9), site of a famous castle which still stands today. Although Mount Fuji would have been clearly visible in good weather, even from the Banyū River crossing, the artist placed it four panels further to the left so as to allow space for no fewer than 20 places, nearly a third of the total, that offer a view of Japan’s most famous peak. From Odawara the Tōkaidō climbs steeply through the Hakone Pass, from which travelers would also have been able to see the twin peaks of Mount Futagoyama (labeled on the screen’s fourth panel) and perhaps make a detour to visit a remote rural shrine, labeled Gongen no yashiro.

After passing through Hakone (10), the road continues on the fifth panel to Mishima (11) with its great Shinto shrine, then continues across the neck of the Izu Peninsula and back to the coast of Suruga Province by way of the stations at Numazu, Hara, and Yoshiwara (12–14), all of them depicted and labeled on the final panel of the right-hand screen. The start of the left-hand screen shows the ferry over the Fujikawa River, after which travelers reach the station at Kanbara (15) under Mount Fuji. The next two stations, Yui (16) and Okitsu (17), are omitted but the artist shows a man and his horse laboring over the Satta Pass which connects the two, while other travelers admire the raging seas of Suruga Bay. Further west the road reaches Ejiri (18) on the third panel, then crosses two rivers, the first by bridge and the second, the Abekawa River, by ferry; sights along the way include Fuchū (Sunpu) Castle (19) and Suruga Town, while far to the north a label identifies another isolated shrine. The picturesque long pine-clad beach of Miho no Matsubara is not labeled but can be seen in the center of the panel. Having completed the crossing of the Abekawa River, travelers reach the stations at Fujieda (22) on the fourth panel and Shimada (23) on the fifth; at the top of the fourth panel, well away from the Tōkaidō, is Mount Utsunoyama with its narrow, creeper-choked pass best known from a description in the tenth-century poetic narrative Ise monogatari (The Ise Stories). From Shimada, the composition draws us on to the Oikawa River crossing, later made famous by Hiroshige’s print of the following station, Kanaya (24). The road then ascends Sayo no Nakayama, one of the Tōkaidō’s more difficult passes, to reach Nissaka (25) in the center of the sixth and final panel, while another label marks the Kōzanji Temple in the mountains to the north.

Our imaginary journey continues at the lower half of the first panel of the right-hand screen. Skipping the station at Kakegawa (26), the artist takes us to Fukuroi (27) and Mitsuke (28). During the rainy season, Edo-period travelers might have had to stay there several days waiting for the waters of the turbulent Tenryūgawa River to subside before they could board a ferry to the station and castle at Hamamatsu (29). The artist depicts Hamamatsu as being located on a virtual island formed by golden clouds, the sea, and two branches, Dai (Greater) and Shō (Lesser) of the Tenryūgawa River. From there we proceed in orderly sequence to Shirasuka (32) and Futagawa (33) on the third panel, Yoshida (34) Castle and Bridge on the fourth panel, Akasaka (36) on the fifth panel, and Okazaki (38) on the sixth panel; one of the two labels for Okazaki identifies the province as Mikawa. The last place marked on the right-hand screen is Kasadera, close to the center of the present-day city of Nagoya and not far from the Atsuta Shrine at the start of the left-hand screen. Depicted in considerable detail, this important religious center was especially venerated as the home of the sword known as Kusanagi no tsurugi, one of the Three Sacred Treasures of Japan.

From here one senses that the artist is impatient to bring us closer to our destination and take us on a leisurely sightseeing tour closer to Kyoto. We seem to hurry through Kuwana (42), Yokkaichi (43), Ishiyakushi (44), and the nearby temple familiarly known as Yakushimidō, all on the second panel, and then proceed on the third panel to Kameyama (46) and Seki (47) and over the Suzuka Pass to Tsuchiyama (49) and the Suzukagawa River at the fold between the fourth and fifth panels. Two other more remote places are shown on the fourth panel: Mount Fudesuteyama (near the center), a peak also featured in Hiroshige’s depiction of another station, Sakanoshita (48), in his Kyōka Tōkaidō series of 1840–1842, and Sugano (at the bottom) a spot still known today for its magnificent pines. The final two panels are dominated by Lake Biwa, the last great natural feature before the more than 300-mile-long road reaches its Kyoto terminus. We cross the Suzukagawa River to reach Kusatsu (52) and finally Ōtsu (53) at the top left of the lake, but our attention is drawn to six local attractions. Above Ōtsu is the great temple of Miidera, one of the canonical Ōmi hakkei (Eight Views of Lake Biwa), and clockwise around the lake are the great pine at Karasaki, another of the Eight Views; Kagamiyama (nowadays called Kamiyama or Mikamiyama), a small conical peak sometimes known as the “Fuji of Lake Biwa”; the Yokota ferry near the station at Minakuchi (50); Zeze Castle; and finally at bottom left Ishiyamadera Temple, where Murasaki Shikibu is said to have composed the great novel Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji) at the beginning of the eleventh century.

Thomsen Gallery

Tanabe Chikuunsai II

Flower Basket, 1980s
Bamboo and rattan
12½ x 10½ x 10½ in. (32 x 27 x 27 cm)

Comes with the original paulownia-wood tomobako storage box inscribed and signed by the artist

Born in Sakai City, Osaka, Chikuunsai II studied under his father, Chikuunsai I (1877–1937), from an early age. Using the name Shochikuunsai (“Little Chikuunsai”) from 1925, he first showed his work at the Teiten national fine arts exhibition in 1931. Following the death of Chikuunsai I in 1937, Chikuunsai II succeeded to the family name and began to exhibit frequently both domestically and internationally. He was the leading exponent of bamboo in the Kansai region during his lifetime and played an important part in shepherding the art form through wartime disruption and into the post-war world of department-store exhibitions and international exposure. Chikuunsai II worked in many styles and techniques.

Thomsen Gallery

Koji Hatakeyama

(b. 1956)

Bronze as Bronze II, 2025
Patinated bronze
12½ x 9 x 9 in. (32 x 22.5 x 22.5 cm)

Thomsen Gallery

Scenes from Life at the Chinese Imperial Court

Early 17th century
Six-panel folding screen; ink, mineral colors and gold on paper with gold leaf and gold wash
60 x 146¼ in. (152.3 x 371.8 cm)

Building on a tradition established toward the end of the sixteenth century, this ambitious composition combines a large number of scenes from the history of the Chinese Imperial Court, some of them connected to the story of Emperor Ming Huang, also known as Xuanzong (685–762, reigned 712–¬756) and his beloved favorite concubine Yang Guifei or Yang “The Precious Consort” (719–756). Skillfully separated by golden clouds in a manner that had been developed earlier for screens depicting multiple scenes from Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji), the classic Japanese romance of Japanese court life and intrigue, the meticulously painted episodes included here were drawn from a wide variety of sources. The ultimate literary inspiration was Changhenge (in Japanese Chōgonka, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow), a long poem composed by the great Chinese poet Bai Juyi (772–846) which relates the tragic tale of the exemplary emperor’s fall from grace through his infatuation with Yang, an infatuation that led to an armed insurrection by general An Lushan and ended with the execution of Yang and the Emperor’s flight into exile. Not long after its composition, the text of the poem reached Japan where it has remained ever since one of the most beloved of Chinese literary masterpieces.

In terms of visual resources, the anonymous painter would have taken some of his imagery, directly or indirectly, from Dijian tushuo (in Japanese Teikan zusetsu, Illustrated Stories of the Conduct of Chinese Emperors), a lavishly illustrated woodblock-printed book first published in China in 1573, that chronicles the exemplary behavior of both exemplary emperors and others who fell short of the ideal. A copy of this work was brought to Japan just over two decades later during the Korean campaigns of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598) and was inherited by Toyotomi Hideyori (1593–1615) who commissioned a Japanese reprint in 1606. The Kano academy was soon making large-scale painted versions of Teikan zusetsu: Ming Huang, as an emperor who started out by bringing the Tang dynasty to the height of its glory but then plunged the country into civil war thanks to his self-indulgence, was a natural subject for such screens.

Many of the lavish, formal palatial scenes depicted by the artist, especially those involving conventional courtly comings and goings and imperial audiences, are hard to match with specific events in the story of Ming Huang and Yang Guifei but likely occur early in the narrative. Some of the larger and more dramatic pictorial episodes, however, clearly fit into the story of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow and bear some resemblance to other seventeenth-century versions. At top left, covering parts of three panels, the forces of general An Lushan (who was also Yang Guifei’s adopted son and lover) attack the imperial palace; just below, on the leftmost panel, a courtier tries to console the grieving emperor following Yang’s execution; while further down another attack on the palace is in progress; and lower still is the beginning of the “plank walkways” by which the Emperor escaped through the mountains to temporary exile in the region of Shu (present-day Sichuan Province).

Thomsen Gallery

Koji Hatakeyama

Eight Faces, 2025
Cast bronze, patinated, interior with gold foil
9¼ x 5 x 5 inches (17 x 14.7 x 14.7 cm)

Thomsen Gallery

Takami Kōho

Flowering Gourds and Insect, 1920s
Two-panel folding screen; ink, mineral colors, and shell powder on silk
66¼ x 73¾ in. (168.5 x 187.5 cm)

Thomsen Gallery

Ōta Shūmin

(1881-1950)

Fukakusa no aki (Autumn in the Woods) (detail), 1920
Pair of two-panel folding screens: mineral colors and gold wash on silk
Each :78¼ x 68 in. (199 x 173 cm)

Exhibited
Second Teikoku Bijutsuin Bijutsu Tenrankai (Teiten Exhibition), Takenodai Gallery, Ueno Park, Tokyo, October 16–November 22, 1920

Published
Nittenshi Hensan Iinkai (Nittenshi Editorial Committee), Nittenshi 6 (History of the National Salon 6), Teiten hen 3 (The Teiten Exhibition 3), Tokyo, Nitten, 1982, pp. 160, 172 (no. 34)

One must acknowledge that among the works on display were several that embodied a mode of expression whose artistic significance had not previously been encountered at the Bunten exhibitions. In a painting titled Fukakusa, for example, one sensed an atmosphere evocative of the place itself; in a work entitled Early Spring, the distinctive sentiments of the season were rendered with persuasive immediacy.

Although these remarks were written by the leading painter and influential exhibition judge Takeuchi Seihō in response to another depiction of Fukakusa shown by Dōmoto Inshō at the First Teiten Exhibition of 1919, his perceptive assessment neatly captures the profound transformations then underway in the world of Nihonga (neo‑nativist painting). Seihō went on to observe that:

Works that seem to have been forced into being through an accumulation of overbearing, self‑conscious effort; paintings that rely solely on abstract conception, displaying not the slightest spark of individual character; and pictures that are merely large and expansive in scale yet utterly impoverished in content … have markedly decreased.

This newly rediscovered pair of folding screens by Ōta Shūmin—the artist’s third submission to Japan’s annual national salon—firmly establishes him as a leading figure within the new wave identified by Seihō. Drawing upon inherited styles and techniques associated with the Rinpa tradition (founded in the seventeenth century) including brilliant mineral pigments, flattened decorative patterning, and tarashikomi (the wet‑on‑wet pooling of pigments), Shūmin also introduces a distinctly modern sensibility. His composition incorporates a Westernizing sense of pictorial depth and a vivid realism in its historic portrayal of a wet afternoon in Fukakusa, an area south of Kyoto, Japan’s former imperial capital. Evergreen pines, their rain‑darkened lower branches hanging nearly to the ground, and birch trees entwined with climbing vines tinged with russet autumn foliage frame the scene, along with a rustic wooden irrigation channel at the far right. At the center stands an anagama ceramic kiln, seemingly just cooled and opened after its long, arduous firing. Several large stoneware kame or tsubo (storage jars) have already been removed, suggesting the quiet aftermath of sustained labor.

To the left of the kiln sits a figure wearing an eboshi court cap, his unadorned clothing identifying him not as a courtier but rather as a servant or retainer. It seems unlikely that such a figure is intended to represent an artisan potter; instead, he may be understood as a visitor, pausing to savor the natural beauty of a region long celebrated for its picturesque fields, bamboo groves, and scattered hamlets. Fukakusa has been known since early times as a center for ceramic tile production—including roof tiles for Momoyama Castle—although there is scant evidence that large‑scale ceramic vessels were ever manufactured there.

Ōta Shūmin was born in Fukushima City in northern Honshū under the given names Shigeru or Masusaburō. After graduating from middle school, he entered the Japanese Painting Department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1904, where he studied under Araki Kanpō, an artist of the highest rank. His earliest recorded work, Tōbijin (“Chinese Belle”), was exhibited at the First Exhibition of the Dokugakai in October 1905. He was first selected for inclusion in the Eleventh Bunten Exhibition in 1917 and continued to exhibit regularly at the Bunten and its successor iterations until 1945. In 1931 he was awarded a Recommendation Prize at the Twelfth Teiten, which also granted him exemption from the jury process. In 1924, Shūmin traveled to China as a committee member of the Japan-China Joint Painting Exhibition. Evacuated to his native Fukushima in 1945, he later served as a juror for the First through Third Fukushima Prefectural Art Exhibitions. He died in 1950 at the age of 69.

Thomsen Gallery

Maeda Chikubōsai I

(1872-1950)

Flower Basket with Natural Bamboo Handle and Antique Arrow Shafts
1920s-1930s, Japan
Bamboo, rattan, lacquer and gold foil
Size: 20 x 8 x 7¾ in. (51 x 20 x 19.5 cm)

Made using arrow-shaft bamboo, susudake (smoked bamboo), gold foil, lacquer, and rattan, using the techniques of gozame-ami (mat plaiting), magaki-ami (with the verticals secured by small rattan knots), wachigai-ami (interlaced circular plaiting) and knotting; natural bamboo handle; striated and lacquered bamboo otoshi (water container).
Signed on the base: Chikubōsai kore o tsukuru (Chikubōsai made this)

Comes with a fitted wood storage box inscribed: Tetsuki kago hana-ire Chikubōsai tsukuru (Handled flower basket made by Chikubōsai) and labeled Maeda Chikubōsai saku yadake hanakago (Arrow-bamboo flower basket made by Maeda Chikubōsai)

Maeda Chikubōsai I worked with Tanabe Chikuunsai I (1877–1937) from about 1912 and began to exhibit high-quality work from 1926 after a period of intense study of earlier pieces for the sencha style of tea drinking, making several pieces for presentation to the emperor and imperial family. He had access to an abundant supply of susudake (smoked bamboo gathered from above the hearths of old farmhouses), which he used frequently in his work.

This important piece from the latter part of his career exemplifies his mastery of the parallel-line construction technique using antique samurai bamboo arrow shafts still bearing traces of their original decoration using gold leaf and red and black lacquer, and his skillful incorporation of natural, unsplit bamboo to form a graceful handle that complements the intricacy and precision of the basketry.

For another basket by Chikubōsai I of very similar construction (but a different shape), compare A+C VWG, Baskets: Masterpieces of Japanese Bamboo Art, 1850–2015, n.p. [2017], [Catalogue of the Naej Collection], cat. no. 165; also published in Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac, Fendre L’Air: Art of Bamboo in Japan, exhibition catalogue, 2018, p. 73.

Thomsen Gallery

Shigaraki Jar

15th c., Japan
Stoneware with natural ash glaze
19¾ x 17¾ x 17¾ in. (50.2 x 45 x 45 cm)

Thomsen Gallery

Yoshio Okada

(b. 1977)

“Layered Clouds, Full Moon” Kanshitsu Box with Sprinkled Design of Celestial Phenomena, 2018
Japan
1½ x 5¾ x 4¼ in. (3.8 x 14.4 x 10.9 cm)

Thomsen Gallery

Fudo Ritsuzan

(1886-1975)

Mountain Landscape, circa 1940
Two-panel oversized folding screen; mineral pigments and gold wash on silk
72¾ x 97¼ in. (185 x 247 cm)