Pair of Mandarin Ducks | Matsumura Keibun 松村景文 | 1779-1843

Matsumura Keibun is an outstanding painter in Kyoto in the 19th century. His older half-brother Goshun founded the Shjō school together with the painter genius Maruyama Ōkyō (1733-1795), whose institution produced highly talented painters in Kyoto for a whole century. Keibun was very productive, and his works can still be found in the domestic art trade today. The astonishing thing, however, is that despite his productivity, he actually only created first-class quality (which cannot be said of all great Japanese painters).

Keibun had a sleepwalking sense of form, a noble sense of color and an unerring eye, which he had trained in the realist tradition of Maruyama Ōkyō. He was not a revolutionary, but rather cultivated the classic themes and created them - within the tradition - always in a new and appealing way.

Keibun Mandarin ducks have become famous and have been popular since ancient times as these two birds are a symbol of mate loyalty. This pair here enjoys warm spring days under blooming white cherry blossoms in a blissful half-sleep.