Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Letter
Katagiri Sekishū Japanese
Not on view
Katagiri Sekishū, a government official and overseer of the Kantō region, was also a painter, Zen practitioner, tea master to shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna (1641–1680), and curator of the Tokugawa family art collection. His primary devotion was to the tea ceremony.
This letter concerns his purchase of artifacts that had once been displayed by the most revered of tea masters, Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591). Strongly inked characters contrast with lighter, thinner brush strokes in a calligraphic style derived from Rikyū’s own writing.
