Genre Scenes of the Four Seasons
Miyagawa Chôshun
(Japanese, 1682–1752?)
Kyôhô era (1716–36)
Medium/TechniqueHandscroll; ink and color on silk
DimensionsImage: 32.5 x 512.4 cm (12 13/16 x 201 3/4 in.)
Credit LineWilliam Sturgis Bigelow Collection
Accession number11.7665
On View
Not on viewClassificationsPaintings
Collections
Most artists of the Ukiyo-e school were active in three areas, painting, print designing, and book illustration; but Chōshun, one of the few exceptions, seems to have done only paintings. This unsigned work is attributed to him because of the extraordinary delicacy and skill in the depiction of the figures, whose fashionable costumes are as lovely as the natural scenery around them. The spring scene that opens the scroll shows sightseers arriving at a park, on foot or by palanquin, to view the cherry blossoms.
ProvenanceBy 1911, purchased by William Sturgis Bigelow (b. 1850 - d. 1926), Boston [see note 1]; 1911, gift of Bigelow to the MFA. (Accession Date: August 3, 1911)NOTES:
[1] Much of Bigelow's collection of Asian art was formed during his residence in Japan between 1882 and 1889, although he also made acquisitions in Europe and the United States. Bigelow deposited many of these objects at the MFA in 1890 before donating them to the Museum's collection at later dates.
