ITŌ JAKUCHŪ (1716 — 1800)

Seven Cranes

Edo period, circa 1755

A Japanese hanging scroll painting, kakejiku, ink and colour on silk, depicting a group of seven Red-crowned Japanese cranes huddling together for warmth, signed Heian Jakuchū koji and sealed Jakuchū koji.

Image 110.8cm x 51cm; total 200cm x 64cm

Provenance: the Claudio Perino Collection, Turin, acquired mostly in Japan in early 2000s.

Exhibited: MAO Museo d'Arte Orientale, Turin, and MUSEC Museo delle Culture, Lugano, 2020 - 2022.

Literature: the exhibition catalogue Kakemono, Five centiuries of Japanese painting. The Perino Collection, p. 60, no 36.

A very similar painting is the Etsuko and Joe Price collection.

PLEASE NOTE BIDDING FOR THIS LOT IS SUBJECT TO A DEPOSIT OF £2,000

The finely painted birds with their realistically rendered plumage stand in contrast with the semi-abstract landscape bringing to mind a cold morning enveloping the graceful flock with a freezing mist. The Red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis) has always been a symbol of longevity, fidelity and good fortune all across East Asia. Number seven is also highly auspicious in this region and so the number of lucky birds is no coincidence, creating a highly desirable image.

Itō Jakuchū was born as a son of an industrious grocery shop owner in Kyoto and displayed talent for painting from a young age. Initially he taught himself to draw the vegetables in his father's shop and chickens in the garden. This keen observation of nature laid the foundation for his uncompromising realistic style which came to define the tone of Japanese painting for the new coming era. After his father's death he set up a studio and became closely affiliated with Daiten Kenjō, the later abbot of the Rinzai Zen sect Shōkoku-ji temple, where the artist was granted access to the temple's collection of Japanese Kanō School and Chinese paintings. Some of these artworks came from under the brush of Shen Nanping (Shen Quan 1682 — 1760). Young Jakuchū was especially inspired by the Chinese master's depictions of cranes.

Jakuchū painted cranes multiple times, including in his flagship series of thirty scrolls entitled 'Colorful Realm of Living Beings' (Doshoku Sai-e) presented by the artist to Shōkoku-ji. The temple passed the group to the Imperial Court in 1890s and it is presently exhibited at the Museum of the Imperial Collections (Sannomaru Shozokan) with a status of the National Treasure. Stylistically the present lot resembles the scroll titled 'Domestic Fowl' from this series, where a flock of thirteen cockerels creates an entangled mass of richly patterned plumage and bright red crests and beaks, where individual birds blend into each other.

The unusual professional training and singular style precluded scholars from classifying Jakuchū's works in the traditional Japanese painting school system. In fact even as late as 1970 Nobuo Tsuji featured him in his book titled Lineage of Eccentrics (Kisō no Keifu) alongside Nagasawa Rosetsu and Utagawa Kuniyoshi. His love for detail and inspiration drawn from nature set him closest to Maruyama Ōkyo and the Maruyama school, but from the start he has been treated as an outsider. Jakuchū was aware of the value of his art, and, in his own words, he knew it would probably take a thousand years for it to be fully recognised on the level it deserves. Luckily he was 'discovered' much sooner and his impact on the local artistic life is undoubtedly prominent and lasting. Jakuchū's works are featured in important private and public collections in Japan and worldwide.

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