Episode from a Tale (possibly from the Tale of Chūgū)
How did wealthy families live in medieval Japan? This painting offers us a glimpse of an aristocrat’s home. With hair-thin lines, the artist illustrated the architectural details such as pillars, beams, painted sliding doors, and furniture such as rolled-up blinds and room dividers.
The text inscribed vertically between the figures suggest that this painting is part of the Tale of Chūgū, which is a tragedy about a noble woman.
With Mayuyama & Co., Tokyo, by 1966;
Purchased from Mayuyama & Co. by Karen Dean Bunting (1912-1981), Shawnee Mission, KS, before October 31, 1966-1981 [1];
Her bequest to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1981.
NOTES:
[1] Undated object documentation on Mayuyama letterhead, listing three scrolls Bunting acquired at the same time, is in the Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. A letter to Bunting from Howard C. Hollis, dated October 31, 1966, discusses a scroll in Bunting’s collection that is included in the Mayuyama documentation, thus this scroll must also have been in Bunting’s collection before October 31, 1966.
Roger Ward, ed., A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977-1987, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1987) 74-75, no.28, (repro.).
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993) 358, (repro.).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008) 384, no.18, (repro.).
Patricia Graham, “Japanese Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” ORIENTATIONS 16, no.8 (August 1985) 20, fig. 13, (repro.).
Kawada Masayuki, “Neruson-atokinsu bijutsukan zō, hakubyō monogatari e dankan – totsusen shita e no sakurei, ‘chūgū monogatari emaki’ to no kanren,” Yamato bunka 135 (August 9, 2019) 53-68, plate. 1, fig, 1-11, 15, 17, 18 (repro).
