UNKNOWN JAPANESE ARTIST.
[Japanese funeral customs].
JAPANESE EXPORT PAINTINGS
A very unusual album of good quality comprising a complete set of 16 paintings relating to Japanese funeral ceremonies for a high-ranking samurai. All funerals in Japan used to follow Buddhist rituals: The album shows the various stages from the moment the person dies, to shaving and washing the corpse, to placing it in a wooden tub, the wake followed by a procession to the temple where the body is cremated and entombed. The last plate shows the annual ceremony in memory of the deceased.
The style, technique, and the use of watercolours is reminiscent of the studio of Kawahara Keiga (1786- ca.1862). Very little is known of his later life but there is some evidence that he moved to Yokohama or Edo during the 1850s to set up a studio catering to foreign visitors. It also bears strong similarities to the illustrations in Silver’s “Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs” (London, 1867).
