Hanging scroll: A plum branch bound up with narcissus

The painting is signed Kyugetsusai, together with an undeciphered seal of the artist. It was formerly attributed to the better-known Zen priest-painter, Kei Shoki (Ji. 1476-1506), who worked in Kamakura, the first centre of the Zen sect in Japan, but it is now known that Kyugetsusai is an art-name of his pupil, Keison. The painting is in the serious Zen ink-style, with abundant use of wash, the flowers being re- served in the white paper. The flowering plum and the narcissus, both symbols of early spring and of the resilience and elegance of the scholar-artist, have been plucked and tied together to send as a present to a like-minded friend, and this recalls the elegant amateur exchanges of the Chinese scholar class of the same period. The scroll has a lacquered outer box and an older wooden inner box with the seal of the Matsukata collection.

Entry taken from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection 3 volume catalogue, edited by Steven Hooper (Yale University Press, 1997).