Fukurokuju, Sesson Shukei - Paper - Japan - Early Edo period

School of Sesson Shukei (1504–1589) signed Sesson Shukei with a seal. Japan. Finely drawn ink on paper. Mounted with a silk brocade frame and as a hanging scroll depicting the god of fortune Fukurokuju, a small scroll rests at his head, his mouth covered, but the eyes seem to reveal at least an unusual truth with a serious expression. His hood and wide sleeves are rendered with bold, dynamic brushstrokes, the eyebrows and the beard are densely painted brushwork, his nostrils with short lines and the contours and wrinkles of his face with dynamic brushstrokes. Dating very difficult. 16th-17th century.
SIZE 110 x 50 cm (image) and 190 x 70 cm (overall)
Condition: Good condition with signs of old wear, small color losses, folds. Ends of scrolls: bone
Provenance: German private collection.
Sesson Shukei (1504–1589) was a Japanese Zen monk and painter of the Muromachi period; he was born as a member of the Satake clan, but left it after being disinherited by his father, and was taken in as a monk into a Shoso-ji temple, the Satake Bodaji. Sesson was a master of ink painting, comparable to Sesshū Tōyō, one of the greatest painters in Japanese history, and worked in a dramatic style. He generally emphasized eccentricity, humor, and exaggeration in his treatment of subjects, whether figural or landscape. He pays homage to Sesshū in name, but paints his own quirky, often almost baroque ink—far from Kanō school painting and later Nanga. His Zen stance is not courtly smooth, but eccentric, “kisō” (奇想).
In China, Fu, Lu and Shou (福祿壽, Sānxīng) are three separate star gods. In Japan they were often fused into one figure: Fukurokuju. He thus does not stand for mere luck, but for the full civic ideal of the Edo period: happiness + livelihood + old age. The extra-long forehead comes from the Chinese Shouxing (寿星), the Old Man of the South Pole (Canopus / 南極老人). The head is considered the seat of wisdom and years of life – the higher the forehead, the more life time and scholarly achievement.
MUSEUM COMPARISON: Compare a related painting of Jurojin by Sesson Shukei, 136.5 x 70.6 cm, in the collection of the Freer Gallery of Art at the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number F2015.6a-d. Also compare a closely related painting of Daruma, School of Sesson Shukei, dated to the 17th–18th century, in the British Museum, accession number 1913.0501.009.