SESSON SHUKEI (1504-1589): CROW UNDER WILLOW TREE

SESSON SHUKEI (1504-1589): 'CROW UNDER WILLOW TREE'
Japan, 16th century. Ink on paper. Mounted as a hanging scroll, on a silk brocade coated paper frame with ivory handles. Depicting a squawking crow perched on a willow branch.
Inscriptions:
To the bottom-left, signed 'Sesson zu' 雪村圖 ('Painted by Sesson'). One seal, 'Shukei' 周継.
Provenance:
From the collection of Felix Tikotin, and thence by descent within the family. To the verso, inscribed 'Coll. Bing' and another label inscribed 'SESSON Corbeau.' Felix Tikotin (1893-1986) was an architect, art collector, and founder of the first Museum of Japanese Art in the Middle East. Born in Glogau, Germany, to a Jewish family, his ancestors had returned with Napoleon from Russia from a town named Tykocin. He grew up in Dresden and after World War I, he traveled to Japan and immediately fell in love with the culture. In April 1927, he opened his first own gallery in Berlin. The entire family survived the Holocaust, and in the 1950s Tikotin slowly resumed his activities as a dealer in Japanese art. He became, once again, very successful and prominent, holding exhibitions all over Europe and the United States. When he first visited Israel in 1956, he decided that the major part of his collection belonged in that country. In 1960, the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art was opened in Haifa.
Condition:
Shows tears, material loss, creases, and touch-ups but still presenting well. The brocade frame with usual traces of wear and creasing.
Important notice:
Please note that we will need to remove the ivory roller ends before shipping / handing over the item. The roller ends are not part of this offer.
Dimensions: Image size 99.5 x 42.3 cm, Size incl. mounting 184 x 55.7 cm
Sesson Shukei
(1504-1589) was a Japanese Zen monk and painter from the Muromachi period. He was born a member of the Satake clan but left after being disinherited by his father and was inducted as a monk at Shoso-ji temple, the Satake bodaiji. Sesson was a master of ink painting, ranked with Sesshu Toyo, one of the greatest painters in Japanese history, and worked in a dramatic style that generally accentuated idiosyncrasy, humor, and exaggeration in his approach to subjects, whether figural or landscape.
Museum comparison:
Compare a related painting of Myna birds attacking an owl, by Sesson Shukei, in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The MET), New York, accession no. 29.100.353.