Calligraphy in Cursive Script

DULI XINGYI (DOKURYŪ SHŌEKI, 1596-1672)
Calligraphy in Cursive Script
Album of thirty-six leaves, ink on paper
Each leaf measures 30.4 x 10.4 cm. (12 x 4 ¹⁄₈ in.)
Inscribed and signed by Duli Xingyi, with three seals of the artist
One collector’s seal of Robert van Gulik
Colophon by Obaku Erin, with one seal
One collector’s seal of Robert van Gulik
NOTE: Robert van Gulik Reference no. 388.
In this volume are poems on plum, narcissus, apricot, pear, peony, and other flower and plants.

Duli Xingyi (Dokuryū Shōeki) was a Chinese scholar and calligrapher who fled the Manchu conquest of his homeland and arrived in Nagasaki Japan in 1653. He took the name Duli Xingyi when he became a monk under Ingen, the Chinese founder of Mampukuji, the Obaku Zen temple near Kyoto. The Obaku sect was influential in the spread of contemporary Chinese culture in Japan during the Edo period (1600-1868). As a student of a famous physician Gong Yanxian (1522-1619), Duli help spread the use of cure of pox in Japan.

Acquired from a bookseller in Tokyo in 1948.