Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries

I'm helping a friend sort out an Asian art collection, which incudes this painting of monkeys. The first two characters in the bold kanji appear to form the name "Sosen", which was the signature of Japanese artist Mori Sosen (1747-1821), also called Morikata or Reimyoan, who was noted for this subject. However, the second of the red seals possibly could be interpreted as meaning "imitation". Perhaps one of our Japanese commentators or Rat could verify my suspicion. My apologies for the phone photos, which my friends keep sending to me despite my warnings that they can take thousands of dollars in value off their collections at appraisal time.

Thanks,

Bill H.

The red seal reads "守象" (ぞう) Zou

It's his name, also read as 森守象, Morizou. Found two mark samples for comparisons; the left one is from Christie's past auction.

Keyword: 森狙仙, 森守象

I'm much obliged to everyone for the assistance. 'Hitsu' (筆) was on my short list for the third character under Sosen, but I would have been here this time next year still trying to figure out that first red seal.

Thanks again,

Bill H.

The signature reads 'Sosen hitsu' (painted by Sosen) and the combined seals read 'Shûshô' (守象), one of Mori Sosen's art names.
Mori Sosen was in his time already famous and is still popular today. For this reason, his work was copied, imitated and also forged in great quantities. On the other hand, he was also a prolific artist and many of his original paintings seem to have survived.

I have not a bad feeling with this one. As far I can see from the images posted, it looks well executed and the mounting looks original.

I searched for original paintings bearing the same pair of seals and found one at the British Museum and two at the MET NY. I add zoomed images through print screen of these signatures with the matching seals. Unfortunately, no high resolution image is available online.

My advice is to make a high resolution pictures of the scroll and signature/seals and send them to the BM or MET for comparision - in the hope that they are willing to give an answer. Maybe also, specialists from Christies or Bonhams could give an opinion.

Guy

I think your seals are 守 and 象, the latter can mean "image" but isn't used as to mean "reproduction"; it's probably one of the artist's nicknames.

Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries |