Eaves Decorated with Irises for the Tango Festival

Eaves Decorated with Irises for the Tango Festival is a hanging scroll in ink and color on silk by Kikuchi Yōsai (菊池容斎, 1788-1878), dated 1867 and held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 36.100.98). The subject is a seasonal one rather than a historical-figure portrait: the Tango no Sekku, the fifth day of the fifth month, traditionally observed by hanging iris (shōbu) and mugwort under the eaves of the house to ward off illness and evil influence. Yōsai treats the motif in the same drawing-led, restrained manner he brought to his Zenken kojitsu portraits — disciplined brushwork describing the architectural framing, sober color in the iris leaves and blossoms, and an emphasis on the cultural specificity of the custom rather than on decorative display. The 1867 date places the scroll in the final months of the Tokugawa regime, the year before the Meiji Restoration, and toward the end of Yōsai's own four-decade engagement with images of Japanese tradition. The Met catalogues the painting at 118.4 by 39.4 centimeters and confirms the attribution and date; the museum source anchors the scroll within the small but coherent body of Yōsai's late paintings of festival, seasonal, and customary subjects produced alongside his better-known historical work.