Yamaoka Tesshu Collaboration (Unknown Artist) on Blooming Plum (or Cherry?) Tree with Calligraphy

[Iaido dude]

I'm working my way through my collection, posting nice pieces by Zen Masters and Buddhist Nuns that have a remaining element of art history mystery, in the hopes that our community can help to fill in the missing pieces, while allowing opportunity for communal art appreciation and learning that is so relevant to the Japanese aesthetic running throughout NMB.

 

Yamaoka Tesshu (山岡 鉄舟), 1836-1888.

 

This delightful work is purported to be a collaboration between Yamaoka as the calligraphy and his eldest daughter, Koya 香谷 (Fragrant Valley?) as the painter. I cannot make out the calligraphy, but presumably it refers to some aspect of a blossoming plum (or cherry) tree. According to Yamaoka's family tree in the firsthand account 女士道 : 鉄舟夫人英子談話 (published 1903, but I can't find this) of his wife Yamaoka Fusako (山岡英子), he had 3 sons and 3 daughters, but I'm not sure that Koya is among them unless 香谷 is an artist name if indeed that is the mei. There is, another prominent artist of the Nanga-school named Murata Kōkoku (村田 香谷, born as Murata Shuku 村田 叔, 1831-1912) who would have lived during the late Edo- and early Meiji-periods when Yamaoka was active, but the mei and seal below the painting don't support this attribution. If these two types of work weren't produced at the same time, I think that it is more likely that Yamaoka brushed calligraphy on the painting rather than the other way around, but they look to have been done together. 

 

On this work,Yamaoka's uses a seal in clerical scripot that doesn't appear very often, but it matches that used for an inscription with mei that he brushed for a formal portrait made when he was 51 (1886)--two years before his untimely death. His mei also corresponds to that time period, having evolved steadily, especially after his enlightenment experience at age 45.

 

 

 

 

 

[SteveM]

I think the collaborator is indeed Murata Kōkoku. I'm looking at some of his seals, and he's got one very similar to the one on this scroll.

(see below and at http://inkan-search.net/search/detail.php?id=50 ). 

 

 

The content of the text... a bit more challenging. I can only pick out words here and there, and these without much confidence

香、都、京、時

 

 

 

[Iaido dude]

Interesting, but the 2-character mei is very unusual compared to the rather formal one that he seems to use on his famous works. It may be a more informal nod to an artist name. I was researching the Murata Kōkoku lead on and off all afternoon when work slowed down. The link is fantastic, BTW!

 

Murata's work appears to be largely in large and detailed landscapes, but of course he may have tailored his work to suit the smaller scale and more personal sentiment of the inscription for this collaboration. I'm going to look at a few hundred works of Yamaoka to see if I can find another one that provides a clue to translation. Unfortunately, when it comes to commentary related to the plant world, which are rare for him, examples are few.

[Iaido dude]

There is some similarity here.