Riverside Fox, Tanaka Totsugen

Tanaka Totsugen 田中訥言 (1767-1823)

Signed: Totsugen, with one seal of the painter: Totsugen chinjin.

Early 19th century.

99 x 29 cm. (with mount: 183 x 38.5 cm.)

With a wood box.

A hanging scroll in ink and colours on paper, gently depicting a fox sitting on its haunches at a river bank. Usually a fox would be drawn to the river by the lure of a fried rat in a trap but despite our best efforts to see the silhouette of a rodent in the muddy depictions of the river’s edge, this fox seems to have come to the river simply to relax.

Tanaka had the art names Daikōsai, Kafukyūshi, Kaison, Kimpei, Kyūmei, Tokuchū, and, Chiō, meaning “foolish old man”. Capable of a wide variety of styles and known for the charm of his paintings, Totsugen was born as Tanaka Bin in Nagoya in 1768, but was subsequently raised and taught in Kyoto by the Kanō painter Ishida Yūtei (1721-1786), known for his realistic bird and flower paintings. Later, under Tosa Mitsusada (1738-1906), a founder of the fukko (revived) yamato-e school, Totsugen studied the manner of indigenous yamato-e painting of the Kamakura period (today, it seems that Totsugen’s yamato-e­ painting is more elusive than his other work). In 1788, at 22 years of age he received the title hokkyō, and in 1790 he made some paintings for the walls of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, and he also made copies of the paintings on the doors at the Byōdō-in, Uji. As well as his work in Kyoto and Uji, Totsugen also worked in both Nagoya and Edo, mainly specialising in historical subjects and scenes. In his old age he became blind, and ultimately committed suicide in 1823 at the age of 62.