Antique Japanese screen painting of a beautiful woman or man, possibly a taikomochi or male geisha smoking a long pipe, leaning on a padded lacquered stand and wearing elegant flowing robes patterned with flowers. In the background stands a ink painting of a mountain landscape. The right hand panel is painted with a standing kimono rack, lacquered black with gold butterflies. Hanging from the rack are two exquisitely embroidered kimonos in the manner of the classic "who's sleeves?" subject... Click for details

Antique Japanese 2-panel byobu screen. Covered with small squares of pale gold leaf. That this is antique is told by the size and quality of the gold leaf squares.

Dimensions: 35 1/4" high x 51 1/2" long

Japanese antique rectangular kesa or priest/monk's outer vestment cloth. This asa (hemp) kesa is a yellow/gold color and finely woven with a design of phoenixes and clouds.

Often described as a mantel or robe, the kesa is worn draped diagonally over the left shoulder and under the right armpit. It is meant as a reminder of the Buddha's own simple patched garment, kesa are formed from many fragments of the same cloth. Within each garment, the fragments are typically organized in a... Click for details

Unusual colored Imari porcelain sake server with panels depicting a beauty and a courtier, flying cranes in background with scrolling vine and shippo design, gilt bronze rim at opening. Colors of medium blue, orange, red, brown and black. With fluted sides and 6 character mark on recessed bottom. Good condition.

Edo period, circa early 1800s

Size: 9.5"H x 6"D

Japanese screen painting in two panels of butterflies and moths. The etherial quality of the fluttering creatures is conveyed by delicately painted details and movement. Painted in mineral colors on silk. Each rectangular silk composition has been mounted on a ground of gold leaf on paper. Seal mark on the left hand panel: Watanabe Kiyoshi.

Watanabe Kiyoshi (1778-1861) was born into a family specializing in embroidery in Nagoya. He studied painting in the Kano style under Yoshikawa... Click for details

Antique 2-panels screen painting from the interior of a wealthy home in Momoyama Period Japan. Each of these two rectangular shaped panels is painted with a fan shaped reserve. The fan on the left panel is painted with a branch of blossoming white flowers, possibly dogwood and is shadowed by another blue and gold fan shaped reserve. The fan on the right panel is painted in ink with a bird on a branch and shadowed with a green and gold fan. Both fan reserves are painted over a brilliantly... Click for details

Antique Japanese pair of screen paintings, one of early Summer (or Spring): rabbits, blossoming wisteria and peonies. And the other of Winter: birds including sparrows and kingfishers with snow-covered bamboo and red clusters of berries on a large nandia bush. Painted using mineral colors and gold leaf on paper. Signed Eigaku Kano (1790-1867).

Eigaku Kano was the ninth head of the "Kyo Kano", the Kyoto branch of the Kano School. He is credited for reviving the Kano School and... Click for details

Japanese scroll painting by the Nanga School painter, Rai Sanyo. Calligraphy and a large ink painting of a gourd covered with individual signature seals on paper. Mounted with silk boarder and wooden rollers.

Rai Sanyo (1780-1832) was born to a samurai family of the Hiroshima Domain. He entered into a training school for government bureaucrats in Edo but decide to devote himself to writing instead. Disinherited by his father for doing so, he found himself locked in his room and... Click for details

"Yacchimatta!" the lost soul seems to say as he slaps himself on the head, a sake cup and Tokkuri wine flask in front of him. Ink on dark paper with patterned dark cloth boarder with wide gray piping and featuring bone rollers. The skeleton and or skull have long been featured in Japanese art, both secular and Buddhist. It is used as a symbol of impermanence and as a Zen teaching tool. In this case, perhaps this fellow spent too much time in the bottle and not enough in more meaningful... Click for details

The Ten Pleasures of Tea, ink on paper in a paper boarder with bamboo rollers befitting the rustic scene. Likely an image of the great poet and tea master, Bassho. Titled Charakujutoku (The Ten Pleasures of Tea). The image signed Kanzan, the calligraphy Kunsen.

Yamada Kanzan (Nagoya, 1856-1918) studied under Kosone Kendo and was a renowned literati and Seal Carver. He studied painting directly under Wu Changshuo in China and excelled at not only his trade of seal carving but also... Click for details