Preliminary Drawing of Three Deer Mounted on a Hanging-scroll Painting of Flowering Bush Clover

Ogata Kōrin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The simple but animated sketch of three deer is by Ogata Kōrin, the great Kyoko painter who was at his peak in the early eighteenth century, and the spontaneously brushed painting of bush clover surrounding it is by Suzuki Kiitsu, who was active in Edo (present-day Tokyo) a century later. Neither is a fully consummated or polished work by the respective artists, yet what this delightful collaborative composition signifies is how artists working under the rubric of Rinpa—literally, “the school of Kōrin”—looked back on the work of their predecessors for inspiration. Kiitsu and the patron who commissioned the work were paying homage to Kōrin—the Rinpa artist who inspired Kiitsu and his teacher Sakai Hōitsu to revive the painting style established by Tawaraya Sōtatsu of two centuries before. Kiitsu had entered Hōitsu’s studio in 1813, just two years before the two artists commemorated the centenary of Kōrin’s death by publishing One Hundred Paintings of Kōrin (Kōrin hyakuzu), and this work is probably from around that time.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art