Two Sparrows | Watanabe Nangaku 渡辺南岳 | 1767-1813 | Rice Ears on the Mounting: Nakajima Raishō 1859

Watanabe Nangaku was among the "Ten Best Pupils" of Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-1795), the preeminent painter of the 18th century. This official distinction cemented his status. He became particularly famous for his portraits of women and for his paintings featuring carps.

Here, he chose only two sparrows as his subject, yet their lively expression and the confident rendering of their plumage with the brush are admirable. What is truly special about this painting, however, is the integration of the mounting into the painting itself. His considerably younger colleague, also a renowned painter and a student of Ōkyo's grandson, Nakajima Raishō (1796-1871), likely mounted the painting himself, 46 years after Nangaku's death, and painted ears of rice onto the silk mount. He signed this painting on the back of the scroll and also created the box. Inside the box lid, he inscribed a tribute to the "master," who was thirty years his senior, and confirmed not only the authenticity of the sparrow painting but also his own work.

The rice ears protrude into the frame from the left, disappear beneath the image, and reappear below. Their angle of incidence corresponds precisely to the diagonal line along which the two birds converse and on which the signature lies. Raishō thus clearly responded to Nangaku's composition, modestly placing his homage painting beneath the sparrows. Given his great reverence for the master, he likely would not have dared to paint rice ears above the sparrows, even though there would have been ample space. One can easily imagine that in ancient Japan, such a decision would have been a matter of etiquette.