“A Lovely Garland” (Tamakazura), from The Tale of Genji

Toward the end of the year, the time approaches for the distribution of the New Year's robes to the ladies of Genji's household. "We must see that they are divided so that no one has a right to feel slighted."[1] Beautiful garments are sorted and put into chests and wardrobes, to be allocated among the women in question.

This episode, illustrated in the small album-leaf painting format, is from "Tamakazura" (The Jeweled Chaplet), the twenty-second chapter of the Genji monogatari. Genji is shown seated near Murasaki, as the women put colorful garments into black lacquered boxes. Outside is a snow-covered garden where mandarin ducks, symbols of winter and marital harmony, can be seen on the water. The scene is jewel-like in its miniaturistic detail, a signature of Tosa-school narrative painting. Accompanying the picture is a sheet of the same size with eight lines of text and the chapter title at the extreme right. The sheets were originally pasted into an album, facing each other, with the text on the right side, the picture on the left.

To create a landscape and enhance the beauty of the text page, the artist used paper stencils to sprinkle tiny flakes of gold and silver on the surface. A shoreline appears in the foreground and a hill at the center, with a cloud pattern above. Larger areas of gold and silver foil further enrich the image. Close scrutiny reveals small, delicate trees on the distant hill. Reeds line the shore, and a roofed boat sails past. The silver ink has oxidized, darkening the waves in the foreground and obscuring the text.

The Kimiyori-kō ki (Records of Lord Kimiyori) and other documents note that painters of the Tosa school used decorated paper as a ground for calligraphy, a tradition dating back to the Heian period (cat. nos. 19, 20).[2] These decorative motifs, more prevalent later, in the Momoyama and Edo periods, were small and delicate, in contrast to the large-pattern designs for paper created by Sōtatsu in the seventeenth century (cat. nos. 83, 84).

The small painting seen here is nearly identical to a scene from a Genji album now in the Kyoto National Museum, a collaborative effort by Tosa Mitsuyoshi (cat. no. 81), the Tosa artist Chōjirō (fl. early 17th century), and an unidentified painter of the same school.[3] Although once attributed to Chōjirō[4] it differs stylistically from the paintings in the Kyoto album. The figures have smaller, narrower faces, and the pine trees depicted on the sliding panels appear more three dimensional than the crisply outlined, flattened versions in the Kyoto album. This painting can thus be attributed to an unidentified painter who, like Chōjirō, was strongly influenced by Mitsuyoshi's miniarurist style.

[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]

[1] Murasaki Shikibu 1976, p. 406.
[2] The entry for the twenty-ninth day of the second month of the eighth year of the Daiei era (1528) in the Kimyori-kō ki, unpublished. See Miyajima Shin'ichi 1986, p. 78.
[3] Takeda Tsuneo 1976, pp. 11–40. Takeda believes chat the anonymous paintings are also by Chōjirō. For a color reproduction, see Akiyama Ken and Taguchi Eiichi 1988, p. 117.
[4] Tokyo National Museum 1985a, no. 38.

Inscription: Calligraphy attributed by box inscription to Konoe Ryusan, i.e. Konoe Sakihisa (1536-1612) who took that name in 1582. Sakihisa was the father of Nobutada and the teacher of Shokado.

[ N. V. Hammer, Inc. , New York, 1966; sold to Burke]; Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (1966–2015; donated to MMA)

Tokyo National Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," May 21, 1985–June 30, 1985.

Ishikawa Prefectural Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," July 13, 1985–August 11, 1985.

Nagoya City Art Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," August 17, 1985–September 23, 1985.

Atami. MOA Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," September 29, 1985–October 27, 1985.

Hamamatsu City Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," November 12, 1985–December 1, 1985.

New York. Asia Society. "Art of Japan: Selections from the Burke Collection, pts. I and II," October 2, 1986–February 22, 1987.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Courtly Romance in Japanese Art," May 12–July 12, 1989.

Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. "Die Kunst des Alten Japan: Meisterwerke aus der Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," September 16, 1990–November 18, 1990.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Japanese Art from The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 30–June 25, 2000.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 20, 2015–May 14, 2017.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated," March 5–June 16, 2019.

Murase, Miyeko, Il Kim, Shi-yee Liu, Gratia Williams Nakahashi, Stephanie Wada, Soyoung Lee, and David Sensabaugh. Art Through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection. Vol. 1, Japanese Paintings, Printed Works, Calligraphy. [New York]: Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, [2013], p. 50, cat. no. 70.

Carpenter, John T., and Melissa McCormick. The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019, p. 183, cat. no. 43.