Details
Property from the Holdings of the Ford Foundation

ANONYMOUS (18TH CENTURY)
Scenes from the Tale of Genji
Pair of six-panel screens; ink, color, gold and gold leaf on paper
48 ½ x 112 in. (123.2 x 284.5 cm.) each
(2)

Provenance:
Mayuyama & Co., Ltd, Tokyo
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Lot Essay

The Tale of Genji is a long, romantic novel in fifty-four chapters, written about the year 1000 by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting to the empress. It is set in the tenth century, Japan's golden age, when great wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of a small group of highly cultivated aristocrats. Scenes from the novel are recurring themes in Japanese art, for there has rarely been a time when the educated elite was not nostalgic for the charms of Prince Genji, the amorous hero.

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