Pines, Waves, and Mountains,

1916

1916

Asia, Japan

Large painting showing pine trees with mountains in upper right, water in lower left. Keinen painted this a variation of this same theme in 1914 for an immense embroidery (9 m wide) in Imperial Palace. The box inscription indicates that this hanging scroll was done two years afterwards using ink leftover from that imperial commission. Keinan painted this theme on several occasions and a smaller painting (about 3 feet) wide is also known. Each of the paintings, however, are unique compositions and the one under consideration may be the largest painted version and represents the artist at his finest.

In his time Imao Keinan was a well-known artist with international success (see Artist Biography). One of the foremost painters of the Meiji era, his work was highly sought by collectors in the twentieth century. For whatever reason, Meiji painting has yet to become a target for collectors, and Keinan’s popularity as waned in recent decades. This affords us the opportunity to acquire one of the best paintings by a leading Meiji era artist at a very low price. We have less than a handful of Meiji paintings in the collection, but we did recently acquire Kobayashi Kiyochika’s (1847-1915) The Great Fire at Ryōgoku Bridge (PUAM 2009-77), another outstanding painting from this era. Together we would have two of the greatest paintings of that era.