Tiger, Tigress and Cub

Kishi Chikudō

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A regal, reclining tigress nurses her cub, while an adult male tiger—possibly her mate—stands poised to drink at a narrow mountain stream, his mouth open in a snarl. Although the landscape is rendered simply in ink monochrome, the thick fur and sinuous muscularity of the tigers are painted in detail, with the color wash on their coats and the yellow silk background around them creating the impression of sunlight. Chikudō, the fourth-generation head of the Kyoto-based Kishi school, advocated the practice of sketching from life and could have seen live tigers starting in the late 1860s. Like the founder of the school, Ganku, he became famous for his meticulous tiger paintings, one of which was exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The artist and several of his late Edo- and Meiji-period contemporaries were active in establishing a painting style that blended traditional Japanese painting with elements of Western realism and perspective.

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