Lot 291: KANO EISHIN (ISEN’IN, 1775-1828) Edo period (1615-1868), circa 1816-1828

KANO EISHIN (ISEN’IN, 1775-1828) Edo period (1615-1868), circa 1816-1828 Kakejiku (hanging scroll); ink and colours on gold-washed paper in silk mounts, depicting a crouching black-and-white cat about to attack three butterflies flying next to a large flowering peony, signed Isen’in Hoin hitsu (Brushed by Isen’in Hoin) and sealed Eishin; with a wooden tomobako storage box inscribed outside Neko botan no zu Isen’in hitsu (Picture of a cat and peony, brushed by Isen’in), the interior with an unrelated inscription. Overall: 124cm x 71.5cm (48 7/8in x 28 1/8in); image: 35cm x 55cm (13¾in x 21 5/8in). (2).

Exhibited and Published Kaneko Nobuhisa and Oto Yumiko, Dobutsu kaiga no 250nen (250 Years of Animal Pictures), Fuchu, exhibition catalogue, Fuchu Art Museum, 2015, cat. 126. The head of the Kobikicho branch of the Kano academy, based in Edo and official painter to the shogunate, Eishin here executes a distinctively Japanese version of a time-honoured Chinese painting subject, reflecting the vogue in later eighteenth-century Kyoto for more direct observation of nature. The use of the honorific title Hoin in the signature indicates that this painting was executed in or after 1816.