6th Dec, 2024 10:00
Fine Japanese Art
234
UNKOKU TOKAKU: A RARE AND IMPRESSIVE PAIR OF FOUR-PANEL BYOBU (FOLDING SCREENS) DEPICTING PEACOCKS
Sold for €20,800
including Buyer's Premium
By Unkoku Tokaku (born 1674), signed Sesshu nanase Unkoku Tokaku hitsu and sealed Unkoku and Tokaku
Japan, late 17th to early 18th century, Edo period (1615-1868)
Ink, watercolor, gold, and gold leaf on paper, each mounted on four panels set within a black-lacquered wood frame with gilt-metal fittings. Superbly painted with a continuous scene depicting on the right screen a peacock and two peahens, one perched on rockwork and flanked by a magnolia tree and bamboo, with towering mountains emerging from thick gold-leaf clouds, the mountains and the ground speckled with gold, the left screen with a further peacock and peahen below the leafy branch of a magnolia tree, a craggy rock slightly overgrown with moss behind them, the ground sprinkled with gold. Signed lower right Sesshu nanasei UNKOKU TOKAKU hitsu, and sealed Unkoku and Tokaku.
SIZE 165 x 286 cm (each)
Condition: Good condition with old wear, small worm holes along the edges, tears, small losses, and touchups to the gold foil.
Provenance: Christie's New York, 18 March 2008, lot 165, sold for USD 16,250. Collection of Drs. Edmund and Julie Lewis, Chicago, Illinois, acquired from the above. The reverse of each screen with an old label ‘Sesshu nanasei unkoku Tokaku hitsu. Peacock painting’. Drs. Edmund Jean and Julia Breyer Lewis are renowned experts in nephrology who met professionally and later married in 1997, and have since continued to collect Japanese art together, actively seeking the best they could find from the finest dealers in the field. Known for their keen scholarship and high aesthetic standards, for the past three decades Ed and Julie have focused on collecting lacquer art, painting, and Buddhist sculpture from Japan. As they traveled widely their desire to collect Buddhist art grew, and they have expanded their collection to include important Pan-religious sculpture from Greater Asia.
Unkoku Tokaku (born 1674) was the son of Unkoku Tohan, whom he succeeded. He called himself Sesshu VII. He was a major painter of the Unkoku school in the mid-Edo period, specializing in flower-and-bird paintings.
Museum comparison:
Tokaku's paintings are very rare. Compare a closely related six-panel screen by Unkoku Tokaku, one of a pair, dated 17th-18th century, in the Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum.
Auction comparison:
Compare a related pair of six-panel screens by the artist’s father Unkoku Tohan (1635-1724), at Christie’s, Japanese and Korean Art, 21 September 2006, New York, lot 138 (sold for USD 60,000).
By Unkoku Tokaku (born 1674), signed Sesshu nanase Unkoku Tokaku hitsu and sealed Unkoku and Tokaku
Japan, late 17th to early 18th century, Edo period (1615-1868)
Ink, watercolor, gold, and gold leaf on paper, each mounted on four panels set within a black-lacquered wood frame with gilt-metal fittings. Superbly painted with a continuous scene depicting on the right screen a peacock and two peahens, one perched on rockwork and flanked by a magnolia tree and bamboo, with towering mountains emerging from thick gold-leaf clouds, the mountains and the ground speckled with gold, the left screen with a further peacock and peahen below the leafy branch of a magnolia tree, a craggy rock slightly overgrown with moss behind them, the ground sprinkled with gold. Signed lower right Sesshu nanasei UNKOKU TOKAKU hitsu, and sealed Unkoku and Tokaku.
SIZE 165 x 286 cm (each)
Condition: Good condition with old wear, small worm holes along the edges, tears, small losses, and touchups to the gold foil.
Provenance: Christie's New York, 18 March 2008, lot 165, sold for USD 16,250. Collection of Drs. Edmund and Julie Lewis, Chicago, Illinois, acquired from the above. The reverse of each screen with an old label ‘Sesshu nanasei unkoku Tokaku hitsu. Peacock painting’. Drs. Edmund Jean and Julia Breyer Lewis are renowned experts in nephrology who met professionally and later married in 1997, and have since continued to collect Japanese art together, actively seeking the best they could find from the finest dealers in the field. Known for their keen scholarship and high aesthetic standards, for the past three decades Ed and Julie have focused on collecting lacquer art, painting, and Buddhist sculpture from Japan. As they traveled widely their desire to collect Buddhist art grew, and they have expanded their collection to include important Pan-religious sculpture from Greater Asia.
Unkoku Tokaku (born 1674) was the son of Unkoku Tohan, whom he succeeded. He called himself Sesshu VII. He was a major painter of the Unkoku school in the mid-Edo period, specializing in flower-and-bird paintings.
Museum comparison:
Tokaku's paintings are very rare. Compare a closely related six-panel screen by Unkoku Tokaku, one of a pair, dated 17th-18th century, in the Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum.
Auction comparison:
Compare a related pair of six-panel screens by the artist’s father Unkoku Tohan (1635-1724), at Christie’s, Japanese and Korean Art, 21 September 2006, New York, lot 138 (sold for USD 60,000).
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