School of Sotatsu


Flowers of the Four SeasonsEdo period (1615-1868), 17th centuryA pair of six-panel screens; ink, color and gold fleck on paper with chrysanthemums, poppies, bellflowers, lilies, narcissus, patrinia, wisteria, bamboo, nandina, and fruiting grape vines, sealed Inen 60 x 128in (152 x 325.1cm)
|ProvenancePreviously sold Sotheby's, New York, December 19, 1980, lot 91.This pair of screens is part of a genre of flower painting associated with Tawaraya Sotatsu (active 1600-1640) and his followers. The dense clusters of seasonal flowers and grasses (including here fruiting grape vines) arranged in decorative compositions separated by gold clouds, and the use of tarashikomi (puddled ink) in the leaves were elements first introduced by Sotatsu but became mainstays of generations of followers. Most works following the Sotatsu tradition are anoymous, bearing only the round Inen studio seal seen on these screens.