249 - KANO YUSENSAI MUNENOBU: A FINE SIX-PANEL ‘RED-CROWNED CRANES AND PEONIES’ BYOBU (FOLDING SCREEN)

KANO YUSENSAI MUNENOBU: A FINE SIX-PANEL ‘RED-CROWNED CRANES AND PEONIES’ BYOBU (FOLDING SCREEN) By Kano Yusensai Munenobu, signed Kano Yusensai Munenobu go with a pot-shaped seal Setsu Japan, 17th-18th century, Edo period (1615-1868) Ink, watercolors, gouache, and gold leaf on paper. Mounted within silk brocade borders on six wood panels with metal fittings incised with chrysanthemum blossoms. Finely painted on a luminous gold ground with a group of red-crowned cranes gathered along the banks of a meandering stream. Some stand upright in stately poses, their long necks elegantly extended, while others bend gracefully to drink or forage at the water's edge. To the right, luxuriant flowering peonies emerge from craggy rockwork, their full blossoms and dense foliage forming a richly colored counterpoint to the slender white bodies of the cranes. The composition is particularly effective in its balance of densely painted passages and broad expanses of uninterrupted gold, lending the scene both monumentality and graceful visual rhythm. Inscriptions: To the lower right, signed 狩野由宣斎宗信毫 Kano Yusensai Munenobu go [painted by Kano Yusensai Munenobu] and with a red pot-shaped seal 雪 Setsu. SIZE 169 x 381 cm Condition: Good condition with expected wear, minor staining, rubbing and scattered flaking to the pigments, and losses to the gold ground. Evidence of old worm activity, since stabilized and repaired. Presenting beautifully. The red-crowned crane, tancho (Grus japonensis), is among the most enduring auspicious motifs in Japanese art. Distinguished by its brilliant red crown and snow-white plumage, the bird has long been associated with longevity, good fortune, and immortality. Traditionally believed to live for a thousand years, cranes also came to symbolize fidelity and marital harmony owing to their enduring pair bonds. Peonies carried equally auspicious associations with wealth, prosperity, beauty, and high rank. Their combination therefore creates an emphatically felicitous image, particularly suited to the monumental format of a gold-ground folding screen. Kano Yusensai Munenobu was a painter of the Kano school whose biography remains little documented. The present screen is clearly signed with the art name Yusensai and the name Munenobu and bears a distinctive pot-shaped seal reading Setsu. Its monumental gold ground, emphatic rockwork, brilliantly colored flowering plants, and carefully orchestrated group of cranes are firmly rooted in the grand decorative tradition of Edo-period Kano painting. The composition demonstrates the Kano painters’ characteristic ability to combine elements derived from Chinese bird-and-flower painting with the rich colors, extensive gold grounds, and bold decorative effects favored in Japanese interiors. Auction comparison: Compare a closely related six-fold screen with cranes and pine, dated to the 18th century, 107 x 273 cm, at Christie’s, Refined Beauty: Japanese Art of the Edo Period, 28 July 2015, London, lot 1 (sold for GBP 12,500 or approx. EUR 21,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing). Compare a closely related six-panel folding screen depicting red-crowned cranes in a landscape, dated to the 18th century, 178.8 x 373 cm, at Christie’s, Art of Japan, 8 December 2016, London, lot 111 (sold for GBP 50,000 or approx. EUR 62,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing).