Japanese Table Screen With Cranes And Minogame

Kano school Japanese Table Screen, known as a Ko-Byobu, dating to the early 19th century. Finely executed in bright mineral pigments on gold leaf with an inner silk border brocaded with gold thread. The black lacquered frame accentuated with decorative gilt brassware of unusually good quality. Retail label for Naga Antiques New York to the rear. 45cm x 125cm (18 x 49 inches), circa 1820.

Within a charming and clever composition (designed to be read from the right), the pair of Minogame* lure us into the landscape. The stream that dominates the first two panels quickly disappears behind low hummocks of grass where we now move among a mid-ground of elegantly posed cranes. The powerful vertical strokes and malachite green of a bamboo grove disappearing into golden clouds anchor the foreground and supply depth to a scene rendered without recourse to perspective.

Beautifully drawn and executed with rare and highly refined skill. The strong, delicate and expressive line-work is completely uncompromised despite the smaller scale and is combined with a truly impressive level of detail: The masterful use of moriage (the application of a paste to create a three dimensional surface texture) in the most minute of strokes and stipples, is used to create and blend the soft down of the cranes heads and necks into the heavier feathers of the upper bodies. Every leathery wrinkle of skin is precisely rendered in a carefully structured morse code of dots and dashes on legs not much more than a single millimetre wide. 

The compositional conceit of the river winding in and out of view behind a rolling mid ground is very similar to Kano Tsunenobu’s Paulownia and Phoenixes (1704) and this is likely by a later follower in the Kobikichō branch of the Kanō school, official painters to the Tokugowa shogunate. Though we can only guess at the artist, the quality strongly suggests this was produced by a high ranking member of the school for a high ranking member of Edo society.

Condition is superb. Structurally very strong with no tears or losses to the paper hinges, no loose or missing metalwork and no tears, holes or restorations to the front or rear of the screen. Minor nibbles to the edges of the lacquer frame. A small, stable crack to the paint just below the Minogame at the far right panel. A few very small marks to the bodies of the cranes, possibly old water splashes. These are very small and not readily apparent. General surface abrasion, some loss to the pigments. We have lots more images than we can accommodate on the listing, please see all images here or contact for high res files. 

*Minogame are mythological long-lived turtles with long strands of algae growing from their shells. The algae drapes down from their shells and resembles a farmer’s straw raincoat—or mino—from which they get their name.​​

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