2024.76: Broken Branches Drawn from Life

Identification and Creation

Object Number

2024.76

People

Yamamoto Baiitsu 山本梅逸, Japanese (Nagoya 1783 - 1856 Nagoya)
Inscription by Uragami Shunkin 浦上春琴, Japanese (Bizen 1779 - 1846)

Title

Broken Branches Drawn from Life

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

handscroll, painting

Date

1835

Places

Creation Place: East Asia, Japan

Period

Edo period, 1615-1868

Culture

Japanese

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/340344

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Handscroll; ink and color on silk

Dimensions

painting proper: H. 28.1 × L. 593.7 cm (11 1/16 × 233 3/4 in.)
silk mount: H. 29.7 × L. 679.7 cm (11 11/16 × 267 5/8 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• signature: end of scroll painting: 天保乙未夏四月 梅逸山本亮寫 [Summer, fourth month of the Otsubi stem year (kinoto- hitsuji; 1835) of the Tenpo era, painted by Baiitsu Yamamoto Ryō]
• seal: upper; square, intaglio: 山本亮印 [Yamamoto Ryō in]
• seal: lower; square, relief: 玉禅居士 [Gyokuzen Kōji]
• inscription: beginning of scroll painting upper right; by Uragami (Urakami) Shunkin (1779–1846): 嘗恨花榮枯
  空過蝶夢裏
  只願使此花
  終年無生死
  梅郎春風筆
  為這妙絶枝
  淡粧興濃粧
  嫣然配眾美
  不羨神仙郷
  春風吹不已
  
  乙未重陽題於瓶菊之側
  春琴紀選
  
  Dreading the withering of the full bloom,
  Idling away the butterfly’s dream.
  Wanting nothing but to make this flower
  Remain the same for time eternal.
  The plum-blossom gentleman with spring-breeze brush
  Makes a marvelous branch beyond all others.
  Thick blush from pale blush,
  A winsome figure to accompany the assembled beauties.
  Do not yearn for the land of immortals,
  The spring breeze blows eternal.
  
  Written beside a vase of chrysanthemums on the ninth day of the ninth month of the stem year Otsubi [kinoto-hitsuji; 1835, day of the Chrysanthemum Festival], by Shunkin.
• seal: of Uragami Shunkin; before inscription; rectangular, relief: 山光在掌 [Sankō zai shō]
• seal: of Uragami Shunkin; after inscription; square, intaglio: 睡庵 [Sui-an]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

[Yanagi Takashi of Yanagi Oriental Fine Arts, Kyoto, Japan (by 1991)], sold; to Robert and Betsy Feinberg, Maryland (1991-2024), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2024.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Robert S. and Betsy G. Feinberg in honor of Dr. Martha Tedeschi, on her retirement as Director of the Harvard Art Museums

Accession Year

2024

Object Number

2024.76

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Publication History

• Musée Cernuschi, Le Japon au fil des saisons: Collection Robert et Betsy Feinberg, exh. cat., Paris-Musées (Paris, 2014), pp. 114-117
• Rachel Saunders, ed., Catalogue of the Feinberg Collection of Japanese Art, brochure, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2021), pp. 21-22, cat. 7

Exhibition History

• Celebrated Four Seasons: An Aspect of Japanese Paintings from the 16th to 19th Centuries, Chiba City Museum of Art, Chiba, 04/27/1996 - 06/09/1998
• 32Q: 2600 East Asian, Japanese, Chinese and Korean, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/29/2021 - 07/17/2022; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 12/10/2022 - 06/04/2023; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 06/26/2023 - 12/04/2023
• Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 02/14/2020 - 06/06/2021

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