Kakejiku with Waterfall by IMAO Keinen (1845–1924) by Keinen IMAO

A tall, narrow waterfall painted in ink on silk. The cascade drops from the upper edge in several broad streams, left in the bare silk, between dark rock faces built up in layered washes and accented with clusters of dotted moss. Further down, the falling water loses definition and dissolves into mist, leaving most of the lower half of the composition almost empty. The work is mounted in pale blue-green silk brocade woven with gold scrolling foliage, with gold-ground borders and hanging strips, and soapstone roller ends (jikusaki). It is kept in a double box. The inner paulownia box is inscribed Bakufu-zu (Waterfall) on the lid, and signed Keinen with a seal on the inside of the lid. The scroll is accompanied by the slip of the Kyoto mounter Kawaguchi Seiwado.

IMAO Keinen was born in Kyoto in 1845. He trained first under the ukiyo-e painter Umegawa Tokyo from 1855, and from 1858 under Suzuki Hyakunen. He entered the Kyoto Prefectural School of Painting in 1880, became a professor there in 1888, and chaired the Kyoto Goso Kyokai from its founding. His album Keinen Kacho Gafu (1892) established his reputation for precise bird-and-flower painting based on sketching from life. At the world's fairs he won an honorary award in Chicago (1893), a silver medal in Paris (1900) and a gold medal in St. Louis (1904). He was appointed Imperial Household Artist (Teishitsu Gigeiin) in 1904, served as a juror for the first Bunten in 1907, and became a member of the Imperial Fine Arts Academy in 1919. He was a leading figure of the conservative wing of the Kyoto art world, and his pupils included Konoshima Okoku.

Compare:

• IMAO Keinen, Waterfall (Bakufu-zu), c. 1907, hanging scroll, ink on silk, Yamagata Museum of Art (Hasegawa Collection)

• IMAO Keinen, Pine, Cherry and Small Bird, hanging scroll, ink and colour on silk, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art (bearing the same seal readings, Kon'in Eikan and Keinen)

Condition: Very good; scattered foxing to the reverse of the mounting, chiefly below the upper roller, not affecting the front; a small dark speck in the lower blank area of the silk

Measurements: Scroll 31 x 197 cm; painting 21 x 126 cm; roller with ends 35,5 cm