Sketch for the Portrait of Tachihara Suiken

Sketch for the Portrait of Tachihara Suiken is a hanging scroll of around 1823 by Watanabe Kazan (渡辺崋山, 1793-1841), held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 1975.268.114). Painted in ink and color on paper, the scroll is a preparatory portrait study for a finished likeness of Tachihara Suiken (1785-1840), a Mito-domain Confucian scholar and friend of the artist; the sketchbook-style portrait studies that survive from Kazan's mature practice are now recognized as among the most important documents of late Edo portraiture. The work shows in concentrated form the synthesis that made Kazan's portrait practice unique: physiognomic specificity and tonal modeling drawn from his close study of Dutch-trade European engravings and anatomical illustrations, mounted within the format of the literati hanging scroll and brushed in nanga ink and color. Sketches of this kind, drawn from life over multiple sittings, were the working stage between Kazan's direct observation of his sitter and the finished commissioned portrait; many of his most ambitious finished portraits, including the celebrated 1821 likeness of his teacher Satō Issai, are now National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties in Japan. The Met sheet is a rare and intimate window onto the late nanga painter's portrait method.