Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009556About the Artwork
Matsumura Goshun inscribed passages from Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenkō’s (1283–1350) well-known collection of anecdotes, Essays in Idleness, across the top of the panels of this screen and its pair. Goshun illustrated the narratives with his vision of the figures who feature in them. The texts cascade down from right to left, forming unique compositional relationships with the images below. The episodes offer a veritable portrait of human idiosyncrasy, from one man’s deep faith in radishes to another’s inability to avoid nicknames.
Provenance
?–1971: (Mathias Komor [1909–1984], New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1971–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Japanese Screens from the Museum and Cleveland Collections. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 23-May 8, 1977). Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 8, 1987-January 10, 1988). Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 15-September 16, 2001). Stories in Japanese Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 8, 2021-April 3, 2022).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Matsumura Goshun (Japanese, 1752–1811)
- Date
- late 1700s–early 1800s
- Medium
- One of a pair of six-panel folding screens; ink and color on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 146.5 x 330.7 cm (57 11/16 x 130 3/16 in.); Overall: 170.2 x 375.8 cm (67 x 147 15/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Accession no.
- 1971.43.1
More by Matsumura Goshun in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009556
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