EUROPEAN FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE Japanese, Namban, 16th Century Gouache on paper, 36 x 24 inches
HE first period of contact between Europe and Japan lasted just under a hundred years, from 1541, when a Portuguese ship was cast ashore on Kyushu, until 1639, when the shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, closed the country to foreigners. 'As a result, the development of art in the European manner was suspended in Japan; furthermore the majority of works in this category, whether imported or created in Japan were destroyed or discarded leaving us today with only a handful out of tens of thousands of objects which once existed.' (Shin'ichi Tani, Namban Art, The International Exhibitions Foundation, 1973, p. 14). Another version of the present painting, virtually the same size, exists in the Hosokawa Collection in Tokyo. Images such as this are exceedingly rare and exude a charm uniquely their own, filtering as they do the art of Renaissance Europe through the particular refinement of the Japanese aesthetic. $85,000
HE first period of contact between Europe and Japan lasted just under a hundred years, from 1541, when a Portuguese ship was cast ashore on Kyushu, until 1639, when the shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, closed the country to foreigners. 'As a result, the development of art in the European manner was suspended in Japan; furthermore the majority of works in this category, whether imported or created in Japan were destroyed or discarded leaving us today with only a handful out of tens of thousands of objects which once existed.' (Shin'ichi Tani, Namban Art, The International Exhibitions Foundation, 1973, p. 14). Another version of the present painting, virtually the same size, exists in the Hosokawa Collection in Tokyo.