Kakemono Fuji with Red Sun over Clouds and Cherry Blossoms

Aged silk, fine cracks, a warm, honey-colored tone: this hanging scroll openly shows its long history. All the more clearly do the few pictorial elements stand out – at the top Fuji as a calm triangle, beside it a red sun just rising, below them bands of blue-gray clouds that divide the landscape into layers.

At the very bottom, the view opens onto a gentle hilltop with pines and a blossoming cherry tree, while shore and water recede into the distance behind it. Fuji, sun and cherry blossoms are among the auspicious motifs that people in Japan like to hang at the start of the year or for new beginnings.

The painting is signed “Shikō ga,” painted by Shikō, with a seal. The name points to Watanabe Shikō, a Kyōto painter of the mid-Edo period who combined Kanō painting with the decorative style of the Rinpa school. This hand-painted one-of-a-kind piece on silk dates from the Edo period, measures 51 × 152 cm and is mounted in blue-gray silk with brocade; the jikusaki are made of bone, and a wooden box is included.