大雅山村馬市図臨写 (Taiga “Sanson umaichi zu” rinsha)|After Ike Taiga’s “Horse Market in a Mountain Village”

Watanabe Kazan 渡辺崋山

early 19th century · Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper · Asian Art

Stables appear nestled into a mountain landscape, surrounded by a vast herd of horses masterfully rendered using minimal brushstrokes and a reduced palette—soft gray and orange-red, with areas left unpainted to indicate white steeds. The horse wranglers, depicted in a similarly abbreviated style, merge with the crowd. This painting, along with its narrative inscription, is a faithful copy by Watanabe Kazan of Ike no Taiga’s renowned work Horse Market in a Mountain Village (1755), housed today in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo. Born into a family of lower-ranking samurai, Kazan pursued painting from a young age, approaching it as a means of earning a living. He studied under several prominent painters of various schools in Edo, particularly Tani Bunchō (1763–1840).

Artist

Watanabe Kazan 渡辺崋山

Date

early 19th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, 2020