粟に鶉図|Quail and Millet

Kiyohara Yukinobu

late 17th century · Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk · Asian Art

Tranquility pervades this delicate rendition of a traditional subject. Yukinobu, one of the few known female painters of the Edo period, was the daughter of Kusumi Morikage (ca. 1620–1690), a distinguished painter. Like her father, she reworked conventional themes from Muromachi ink painting in a personal manner. Here, the asymmetrical composition and realism recall twelfth-century Chinese academic prototypes of the subject, but Yukinobu’s treatment is distinctive for its delicate hint of domestic harmony in the disposition of the quail and the gently swaying stalks of grain.

Artist

Kiyohara Yukinobu

Date

late 17th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

The Howard Mansfield Collection, Purchase, Rogers Fund, 1936