Product Description

7371 A six-fold paper screen painted in ink and colour on a gold ground with hinageshi and shirogeshi (red and white poppies)

Japan 17th century Edo period

Dimensions: H. 113cm x W. 280cm (44½” x 110¼”)  

Keshi has two meanings, poppy and erase, as this poem by Hokushi (d. 1718) so eloquently illustrates.

Kaite mitari                      I write, erase, rewrite,

Keshitari hate wa              erase again, and then

Keshi no hana                   a poppy blooms.

For the screens depicting red and white poppies by the Rimpa School artists, see Kobayashi Tadashi ed., Rimpa Painting Volume II: Seasonal Flowering Plants and Birds, (Japan, 1990), p. 82-83, pl. 140-141.

For a pair of six fold screens, one depicting mugi (wheat) and the other poppies in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum of Art see: Nihon Byuōbu e Shūsei, Vol.7, Flowers & Birds, Four Seasons’ Plants & Flowers,1980, p.37-36 pl.18