Description

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 there he conceived his idea for writing Nihon Gaishi (“Unofficial History of Japan”). In 1811, he opened a school in Kyoto and found himself part of a circle of writers and poets active in the Kokugaku movement. In 1827 he completed Nihon Gaishi, his life work in 22 volumes which was dedicated and praised by the daimyo, Matsudaira Sadanobu. It was the first comprehensive study of it’s kind and was later banned in serial domains. Sanyo was also an ink wash painter associated with the Nanga School.

Dimensions: 30″ wide x 82″ high