SHIBATA ZESHIN 柴田是真 (1807–1891) PAIR OF SIX-PANEL SCREENS DEPICTING THE LEGEND OF TAKASAGO 高砂図六曲屏風一双Meiji era (1868–1912), dated 1888 and 1889A pair of six-panel screens painted in ink and colours on silk depicting auspicious scenes from the legend of Takasago: on the right-hand screen, the elderly couple Jō and Uba beneath a pine tree by the sea; and on the left-hand screen, the rising New-Year's sun with a crane flying down to a wave-lashed rock; the metal-embossed mounts lacquered with seaweed and shells; the black-lacquered frame decorated with aquatic plants and shells in gold and silver, each with a seal-style gold lacquer signature on the reverse Koma Taishin 古満泰真; the painting signed on the right screen Gyōnen hachijūni-ō Tairyūkyo Zeshin 行年八十二翁対柳居是真 (Tairyūkyo Zeshin, aged 82) and signed and dated on the left screen Meiji nijūni natsubi utsusu Zeshin 明治二十二夏日写是真 (Drawn on a summer day in 1889 by Zeshin), each sealed Zeshin 是真Overall: 163cm × 319.8cm (64¼in × 126in) eachImage: 158cm x 315cm (62½in x 124in) each(2)Provenance:Christie's New York, 24 March 2010, lot 628Takashi Yanagi Oriental Fine Arts, KyotoExhibited:Toyota-shi Bijutsukan (Toyota Municipal Museum of Art), 2011Nezu Bijutsukan (Nezu Museum), 2012Published:Kanō 2003, cat. no. 79Toyota-shi Bijutsukan (Toyota Municipal Museum of Art) 2011, cat. no. 13Nezu Bijutsukan (Nezu Museum) 2012, cat. no. 133注脚The subject of one of the most famous of all Noh dramas, the legend of the elderly couple—Jō and his wife Uba—has a very long history; as here, they are typically portrayed living in happy harmony by a pine tree, he with a rake and she with a broom which they use to gather pine needles. As noted by Tahira Namiko in her catalogue entry for the Nezu Museum exhibition held in 2012, Shibata Zeshin evidently received many commissions for auspicious and festival-related themes. This was especially the case during the last decade of his long life, when this large and ambitious composition, an exceptionally rare example of a pair of six-panel painted screens by the artist, was completed over a period of more than one year, as indicated by the two signatures. For a miniature depiction of Jō and Uba in an album of urushi-e paintings dating from around the same time as this lot, compare Gōke 1981b, pl. 183. Very unusually, the lacquer frames to this pair of screens were decorated by Zeshin's faithful leading pupil Ikeda Taishin (1825–1903), who appears to have played a leading part in the administration of the aging master's busy studio.