SCHOOL OF GEIAI

SCHOOL OF GEIAI
A RARE JAPANESE SIX-FOLD BYŌBU (FOLDING SCREEN)
MOMOYAMA PERIOD, 17TH CENTURY

Ink and colour on paper, painted with a colourful composition featuring a jakō neko (musk cat) observing three large geese by a meandering stream; with a plethora of other birds depicted in a variety of poses: in flight, perched or pecking the ground; three sparrows cavorting lower left corner, a pair of mandarin ducks drifting on the gentle current, and a quail performing a dust bath to the right; a large prunus tree with a gnarled trunk painted to the left, beside rockwork and camellia; the foreground with branches issuing chestnuts and with further flowers and bamboo to the right; the scene also featuring whimsical details such as a small lizard on a rock, basking in the sun, or a quizzical-looking praying mantis; the screen with two red seal marks lower left corner reading as Geiai (‘Lover of the arts’) and Tonshu (possibly a studio name), 180cm x 362cm.

Provenance: The Rooke Family Collection, previously at the Ivy, Chippenham, and thence by descent.

A small number of paintings are known featuring these seals; they relate to the elusive Kyoto artist Geiai. There isn’t much biographical information about him, but for the fact that he was commissioned to paint interiors for the grand Zen temple Daitokuji in Kyoto, and for the date of 1489 written on a document with an underdrawing by him. Many Japanese scholars believe however that he can be identified as the equally enigmatic painter Oguri Soritsu (d.1556).

Paintings by Geiai often feature a wide range of brush techniques including the "boneless" technique, where forms are created without using outlines. This can be seen in several areas of this screen, including the cavorting sparrows in the lower left corner. These are painted in the exact same positions as other sparrows in two paintings attributed to Geiai, one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the other in the Mary Griggs Burke Collection, donated to the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2015. This suggests that the painter of the present screen was very much aware of Geiai’s paintings and techniques, and that the cavorting sparrows was a much-loved subject for artists of the late Muromachi / early Momoyama period.

The painting is rich in quirky and charming details, including a small quail dust bathing, a quizzical praying mantis and a lizard on a rock, basking in the sun. It also features a very unusual depiction of a jakō neko (musk cat) seated amongst the many birds, a detail rarely seen on the usual ‘birds and flowers’ paintings of the period.

The screen comes from the Rooke Family Collection, previously at the Ivy, Chippenham. The Ivy is a magnificent Grade I listed manor house, built in 1728 for a lawyer and local MP named John Norris.  Alexander Beaumont Rooke (1821-1914) purchased the Ivy in 1869, including its contents. The manor house was passed down the generations until it was sold in 2013. The screen was then moved to the family’s new home in Wiltshire. It is unknown whether the screen was originally acquired by a member of the Rooke family or if it was already at the Ivy when it was purchased in the 19^th century.

We would like to thank Dr. Yukio Lippit for his help in researching this lot.