The Burke Collection
Plum Blossoms
Click to enlarge
342-1

Artist

Minagawa Kien

(皆川淇園; 1734–1807)

Catalogue information

Edo period

Hanging scroll; ink on paper

105.2 x 32 cm (41 3/8 x 12 5/8 in.)

Donated to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York by the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation in 2015

Literature

Tokyo National Museum 1985a, no. 53
Tokyo National Museum
1985a
Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: New York Burke Collection / A Selection of Japanese Art from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Chunichi Shimbun.

See full bibliography

;
Avitabile 1990, no. 94.
Avitabile, Gunhild
1990
[Editor]. Die Kunst des alten Japan: Meisterwerke aus der Mary and Jackson Burke Collection, New York. Exh. cat. Frankfurt: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

See full bibliography

See also

This artwork was published as catalogue entry 342 in Volume I of Art through a Lifetime.

Additional details

D342-1
D342-1
D342-2
D342-3

Signature

Painted by Kyōsai

Seals

Minagawa Gen in; Hakkyōshi

Text

by Monk Rokunyo (1736–1801)

Rather than tread the snow through the village ahead, / I search for the spring on paper. / The faint fragrance enters my brush every now and then, / just to create dainty plum blossoms.

Signature

Inscribed by Rokunyo Sanjin

Seals

Unri Ginkō; Jishū no in; Rokunyo


Supplementary Transcriptions

Signature

筇齋寫。

Seals

皆川愿印（白文方印）(intaglio, square)
伯恭氏（白文方印）(intaglio, square)

Text

不踏前村雪﹐
探春紙上求。
暗香時入管﹐
唯作小羅浮。1

Signature

六如山人題。

Seals

雲裡吟香（朱文長方印）(relief, rectangle)
慈周之印（白文方印）(intaglio, square)
六如（朱文長方印）(relief, rectangle)

Notes

1. Mount Luofu in Guangdong Province in south China is frequently associated with plum blossoms. In Stories Collected at Longcheng (龍城錄) attributed to Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 (773-819), a scholar-official named Zhao Shixiong 趙師雄 of the Sui dynasty (581-618) dreamed of meeting with a beautiful woman during his service in the Mount Luofu region. Upon waking up, he found himself sleeping under a blossoming plum tree. See 《龍城錄》, Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編edition, no. 2704, Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1991, vol. 1.