Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Nine Scenes from The Tale of Genji and An Aviary (Genji monogatari zu byōbu; Toriya zu byōbu)
Tosa School Japanese
Not on view
On this unusual pair of screens, nine scenes from The Tale of Genji (Chapters 1, 14, 3, 28, 13, 22, 10, 46, and 40) are matched with a depiction of a life-size aviary, rare in the history of Japanese painting. The aviary’s relationship to Genji was perhaps general in nature, evoking the opulence of the Rokujō estate and its extensive waterways, implied by the structure’s waterside location and elaborate interior pond for the birds. One of its walls appears to be made of bamboo, rendered in gold, while the open front bears fine diagonal lines representing the netting of the cage. The birds include wild mallard ducks (kamo), mandarin ducks (oshidori), sparrows (suzume), the Japanese tit (shijūkara), longtail birds (onaga), quail (uzura), and turtledoves (yamabato).
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