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I would be very glad if someone could identify this signature. It is on a silk painting (scroll?) and depict 9 poets at a river composing poems and putting smal candles on leaves at set them out on the water. I have been informed that it could be by an artist named Kanô Eishuku (1675-1724).

Thanks in advance.

Japanese yes, not likely by Eishuku despite the signature. Compare the following:

http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/landscape-24897

Top of p. 111: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4300756?seq=46

http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/shoulao-juro-24899

Hi,
Thansk for your answer, rat. I see what you mean and I have also looked at these mfa-pics before posting here. Thats why I was puzzled about the signature. Unfortunately, I cannot read japanese and I would be most thankful to anybody that could shed some light regarding this painting as well as its signature.

Thanks
Preben

Hi Preben,

Signature and seal are not so important compared to totally different material from boston, it isnt suited for comparison at all. Your painting seems very small and might have some delicacy. It is a composition of the meeting at Lanting Pavillon (the floating cups make this certain). Unfortunately the pic from the painting is not good enough to say anything more.

I don't know much about Japanese painting, but I think that you either have a painting by someone else using the same name (Eishuku are the first two characters on your painting's inscription, followed by "brush", meaning "painted by Eishuku"), or you have a more recent anonymous painting to which someone has added the false signature of Eishuku. The latter phenomenon is not uncommon and is what I think is most likely. The third but less likely option is that you have a genuine Kano Eishuku picture, perhaps something painted when he was a student, but given the radically different painting styles of your picture and those easily found online in museum collections, you will need to do some digging for similar examples of his work.

Thank you so very much for the answer. I attach three more pics in case that could share some light of this problem.

thanks in advance
Preben

Hi Preben,
Your pictures are still not very good, however it seems to be a very good painting! Just look how excellent the servant is given, balancing the cup on the water! As it is so small (how small?) it is even better. The composition is fine and not easy, brushwork and the coloring is of high quality, nothing easy to accomplish. Your painting is better and far more interesting than the linked pieces in Boston. I would like to suggest to take it out of the glassed frame and handle it as an album piece. Dont bother with this authetification nonsense, thats good for dealers and art historians, because they usually dont notice any quality at all. There is no great value anyway.

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