Lot 181: Watanabe Kazan (1793-1841)

Portrait of Liu Bei (Ryubi Gentoku)
Signed Kazan and sealed Noboru
Hanging scroll; ink and slight color on paper
36 x 12in. (91.5 x 30.5cm.)
Jinbutsu zoga (Collection of figure sketches)
Signed, dated and inscribed Mizunoe-tatsu aki shichigatsu (seventh month, autumn, 1832) tame Kogyoku joshi sha Zenraku'o (painted by Zenraku'o for Kogyoku), sealed Moko and Kazan
Handscroll; ink and slight color on paper
11 1/2 x 344 1/4 in. (29.2 x 874.2cm.) (2)

First:
Homma Museum, Sakata City, "Kaiin suisho kobijutsu ten" (Exhibition of antiques recommended by museum members), 1964.9.15-27

Second:
Aichiken Tawara Bunkakaikan, "Gendai ni ikiru Kazan meisaku ten" (Exhibition of Kazan's surviving masterpieces), 1985.4.28-5.7

PUBLISHED:
First:
Yoshizawa Tadashi, Watanabe Kazan hitsu Ryubi zo (Portrait of Liu Bei by Watanabe Kazan), Kokka 867 (June 1964): pl. 7.

Second:
Kazan meisakuten jimukyoku, ed., Gendai ni ikiru Kazan meisaku ten (Exhibition of Kazan's surviving masterpieces) (Tawara: Tawara City and Tawara City educational committee, 1985), no. 81.

Liu Bei (161-223) was a powerful warlord and the founding emperor of the Kingdom of Shu during the Three Kingdoms era in ancient China. In the 14th-century novel Romance of the Three Kindgoms, Liu Bei was portrayed as a virtuous and charismatic man who rose from a humble straw weaver to emperor. He was praised for loyalty and compassion, Confucian moral values. Liu Bei became a popular figure in Chinese opera and folklore.

The accompanying handscroll includes sketches of Du Fu's "Eight poets Drinking," Kanzan and Jittoku, Daruma and Shoki. Kazan painted the scroll for the woman painter, Saito Kogyoku (1814-1870), who had been his pupil since the age of ten.