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We bought this while living in Tokyo in the '70s. It's in pretty bad condition but it can be restored.
The receipt from the gallery states it is over 150 years old, making it from the Edo Period.
It appears to be a domestic scene at the house of a daimyo, probably in Kyoto.
One thing about this painting puzzles me and no amount of research has given me an answer. The obi on several of the women is long and flowing in the back. The only place I have seen long obis is in pictures of actors in costume, and they are much wider and hang down. Would anyone have a clue about the story here?
Also, as you can see, the backing is damaged in one corner and there are newspapers or magazine pages underneath. Can anyone read the kanji and tell me if these appear old? I thank you for any information you could give me.

More pictures

Hi Margie
My expertise on byobu is a bit rusty, but this looks to be a late Edo period byobu of OK quality. I cannot enlarge the photos but it seems to be depicting a typical 'floating world, Genji type ' scene.
Byobu are traditionally mounted on wooden cores with a system of paper layers that are put on in succession to incorporate pockets of air. These layers and pockets help to protect the screen from damage from impact (to some extent ). The traditional material to use for this is recycled daifuku cho. Which are old account books. These account books are made of Kozo (mulberry ) paper and give a good quality ,non acidic base for the screen mounter to underlay the images on.
Typically a screen (and also scrolls )will be remounted occasionally. Your screen looks to have newsprint underneath instead of recycled account books. This is not very good for the artwork because newsprint is acidic and will slowly degrade the artwork. In my experience this technique of using old newspapers under sceens was started in the post war years (WW2) and was probably just a money saving technique.Not all post war screens are remounted like this though, many were still mounted in the correct , traditional manner. You can tell it is newsprint because it is printed, an old account book would have hand written pages visible. Remounting is an expensive, skilled and time consuming job. You screen should not be 'fixed' by restorers inexperienced in Japanese art. Hope this is of some help . Sue

Sue, you seem very expert, not rusty! I thank you for all the information.
I had no idea what went into the making of old screens, the use of hand-written account books as backing and the reason for it.
Thanks again.

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