Incorrect Username, Email, or Password
This object does not yet have a description.

Gallery Text

Like Tani Bunchō (1763–1841), whose works are displayed nearby, Gentai borrowed from the idioms of professional Chinese painting that were otherwise anathema to the amateur literati tradition. As a result, he developed a style previously unwitnessed in Edo painting. Peach Blossom Spring derives from a prose preface by Chinese poet Tao Yuanming (365–427), in which a fisherman chances upon a paradisal realm after passing through a cave hidden by blossoming peach trees. He returns home to tell others of his discovery, only to fail to find it again. Gentai’s rendering follows the ancient tradition of using azurite blue and malachite green to endow the mountains that shelter the utopian village with sacred meaning.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
TL42570.2
People
Watanabe Gentai 渡辺玄対, Japanese (1749 - 1822)
Title
Peach Blossom Spring
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
hanging scroll, painting
Date
1792
Places
Creation Place: East Asia, Japan
Period
Edo period, 1615-1868
Culture
Japanese
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/340393

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2600, East Asian Art, East Asian Painting and Decorative Arts
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
Dimensions
painting proper: H. 155.2 × W. 79 cm (61 1/8 × 31 1/8 in.)
overall mounting, including roller ends and suspension cord: H. 224.8 × W. 107 cm (88 1/2 × 42 1/8 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • signature: 寛政壬子秋初 邉瑛製 [Painted by Be Ei, early autumn of the stem year Jinshi (mizunoe-ne; 1792) of the Kansei era]
  • seal: upper; square, intaglio: 邉瑛 [Be Ei]
  • seal: lower; square, intaglio: 字廷輝 [Azana Teiki]

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Promised gift of Robert S. and Betsy G. Feinberg
Object Number
TL42570.2
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Publication History

  • The Flowering of Edo Period Painting: Japanese Masterworks from the Feinberg Collection, exh. cat., Yomiuri Shinbunsha (Tokyo, 2013), p. 96, cat. 37
  • Rachel Saunders and Yukio Lippit, Painting Edo: Selections from the Feinberg Collection of Japanese Art, exh. cat. (Cambridge, MA, 2020), p. 82, fig. 72
  • Rachel Saunders, ed., Catalogue of the Feinberg Collection of Japanese Art, brochure, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2021), pp. 57-58, cat. 45

Exhibition History

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Related Articles

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu