The Wanderer and the Beauty

Leaning on a long staff, an old wanderer with a furrowed face and a mottled robe faces an elegant young woman in this kakemono, who, fan in hand, appears to be striding across the waves. The contrast between the wanderer's weathered, life-worn appearance and the graceful lightness of the beauty lends the encounter an appealing tension. An inscription in the upper third of the image accompanies the scene and refers to a particular literary or mythological subject, of the kind that frequently served as the basis for such encounter motifs in the Chinese-Japanese pictorial tradition. The robes are rendered with fine, partly golden shimmering lines that lend the figures a rich texture despite the reduced pictorial space. The painting shows age-related traces of use and has minor damage, which, however, does nothing to diminish its charm as an antique with a long history. For collectors of narrative Japanese figure painting, this kakemono is an appealing discovery.